Leered
by wuemsel
Summary: When Steve´s girl-friend is killed, Jesse endangers his life in order to find the killer. Story now COMPLETE! Thanks for the reviews!
1. Default Chapter

Hiya! `kay, as you see, I decided to do it again. Uh-uh, she's gonna do it again, she's gonna hurt the poor boy. But don't worry, no Harvs in this one.   
  
Thanks to Pinky, as always, for her being the greatest StrangePenguin among all the strange animals in the world and for giving great cuddle (wuddle)! Love your work, kid, keep it going (By the way: New chapter, new chapter, new chapter ... !) And, before I start: yeah, I know the "Steve's girl-friend ends up dead"-storyline isn't exactly an unhit road (ahem ...), but I tried out everything else, old pal and stuff, and it just didn't work, so I settled for the girl then. Hope, you'll enjoy my little tale, anyway. And the next chapters will be longer, I promise.   
  
Disclaimers: I don't own anyone 'cept for the ones I do own, but they're boring and therefore have to die, anyway. Don't sue me, please, neither for killing off my characters, nor for borrowing the cute ones.  
  
`nough said. Enjoy! (Oh, ahm, do I have to mention feedback would be very much appreciated? Grin.)  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"Hey Jess," Dr. Amanda Bentley greeted her young colleague, when she entered the Doctor's Lounge and made her way to the coffee machine.   
  
"Don't hey me," came a soft, pathetic noise from somewhere on the table, on which the young doctor had placed his head.  
  
Turning to take a proper look at him, Amanda frowned in curious amusement and crossed over to sit down next to him. "What's with you?" she asked.  
  
"Saturday night," he mumbled to the tabletop.  
  
"That's with all of us, but I don't see how saturday night managed to nail your forehead to the table."  
  
"Don't you know a frustrated man when you see one?!" Jesse shot back grumpily and lifted at least an eyelid to make her the target of a particularly unnerved look, only to follow with his whole head a split second later. Jesse being Jesse, he regretted his words instantly. "That coffee?" he asked, glancing at her steaming cup.  
"No," Amanda replied sweetly, "arsenic. Want some?"  
  
"Funny." Sweeping a tired hand over his face, he sighed. "Oh sorry, Amanda, it's just ... I'm cranky, `kay?"  
  
"Gee, I wouldn't have thought," she said dryly. "What could have possibly caused that? Oh wait, saturday night? Hm, is it a month already again?" she asked, frowning. "So, is this one of those saturday nights you sit here whining about the unfairness of dating-life, till "ER" starts, and then you fall asleep on the couch just when they roll in a five-year-old who's eaten too much "M. Tom's" so that he can spent the rest of the night puking on an innocent doctor?"  
  
"Don't you have patients to see?" Jesse asked after a short pause.  
  
"My patients can wait," Amanda grinned. "`sides, I would never let you down on a saturday night, would I?"  
  
Breaking down on the table again, Jesse made a noise that resembled a frustrated sob. "Women are so mean."  
  
"So I've heard," Amanda said soothingly and ruffled his hair in mock comfort. "Hey, why don't you go out there and save a life, huh? I'm sure you'll feel better right away."  
  
"Amanda, please ..."  
  
"Hey guys," Jesse's annoyed reply was interrupted by Steve Sloan's entering-cry, which had more of a happy cry on this saturday evening actually. From the bare look of his bright grin, one couldn't have interpreted it in any other way than it being the one of a man in love.  
  
Jesse groaned. "Great, `nother one. What do you want, David Addison? Don't you have Cybill Shephard waiting for you?"  
  
"Huh?" Steve made, raising his brows confusedly.  
  
"Quiet day," Amanda winked. "He spent his whole shift in front of the TV."  
  
"Right, when I wasn't being puked on by five-year-olds."  
  
"Ah ... `kay," Steve smiled uncertainly and looked over his shoulder as if for help. "Listen, Jess, I need you to do me favour."  
  
"Only if you stop grinning around like that. Am I the only one not about to party or what?" Jesse asked frustratedly, looking at one after the other.  
  
Exchanging a quick glance, Steve and Amanda nodded in union. "Yeahp."  
  
"What's with you, anyway?" the lieutenant then demanded, still not able to get rid of his ever happy auter appearance. "It's spring-time. Life's great. Did they cancel "ER" or what?"  
  
"Did I understand that you wanted something of me?" Jesse replied sweetly.  
  
"Oh, yeah, I need you to close up "Bob's" today, Jess, please. I have a date with Carlie, and I completely forgot about it. I haven't even ordered a table or anything, so, please , Jess?"   
  
Amazed, the two doctors watched at the metamorphosis from a police lieutenant to a begging little boy with big puppy eyes.  
  
"Oh god, quit that!" Jesse finally groaned and closed his eyes, wincing. "Okay, okay, I'll close up. Everything it takes to make you stop bambiing me!"  
  
"Oh thanks, Jesse, you're saving my life here!"  
  
"Hm-hm," the younger man nodded and glanced at Amanda, whose look was still fixed on Steve's normalizing features. "I don't feel better, yet."  
  
"Have a little patience," she replied without looking at him and added: "Steve, you've been going out with Carlie for what now, two month? And you already forget your dates? That's a little early, don't you think?"  
  
"Yeah," another female voice announced from the door. "What will it be like when we're married, huh? "Wedding day - ow! Was that today, honeybunch?" But then your dad will probably remind you of that, right?"  
  
Under the laughing-out-loud-kind of looks of his friends, Lieutenant Sloan whirled around to meet his gril-friend's questioning gaze and her hands-on-hips-posture.   
  
"C-Carlie ... ahm ..." he stuttered, then thought better of it and approached her to place a soft kiss on her cheek. "Hi honey. What're you doing here?"  
  
"Checking on you," she replied and chuckled as he went pale. "Kidding, Steve. I thought you might be here, and since it was on my way, I took the chance. Hey Amanda, Jesse," she greeted the doctors, who nodded and smiled.   
  
They'd met Carlie weeks ago and had practically known her from day one, for this time Steve Sloan didn't have a thing for a woman, but was in love with one. Hopelessly, definitely and absolutely un-Steve-like in love. It made him even look different, gave him an air of own private happiness, which, according to Jesse, could have made James Stewart feel jealous. "Carlie and Steve," the young doctor had stated when he'd met Carlie Vitense for the first time at "BBQ Bob's", "sounds like a pop song, doesn't it?"  
  
Steve had told his friends - and his father - that he'd met her while shopping. Of course everybody knew there had to be something more about it, for Steve liked shopping as much as he was good at it, but the lieutenant wouldn't tell them the whole story, which consisted of him having asked the beautiful young lady working at the shop he'd been, what color she would prefer on him, black or blue. And not even Carlie, especially not Carlie, would he tell, that he'd chosen this particular shop just because he'd spotted her from outside on the street. Women didn't need to know everything right away, did they?  
  
Though now, of course, it seemed a good moment to point this very romantic fact out to her, for he'd found himself the target of a, though amused, yet very firm female look.   
  
Not wanting to give up that quickly, he managed a shaky smile and asked: "Your way? Where're you going? We're supposed to meet in ..."  
  
"Outch," Jesse grinned. Amanda chuckled.  
  
"Not smart, lieutenant," Carlie stated and hit his forehead with her palm slightly. "Wouldn't that have been the topic to get away from? Hm? Anyway, I'm late already, though I'd really like to see where this would be going," she grinned. "Thing is, Steve, I've to cancel our date tonight, I'm sorry."  
  
At his all too clear disappointed look, she smiled warmly. "Awww. But I'm gonna make up for it, like, tomorrow? It's just, that, I got a call from my dad, that he wants to see me today, and I think it's important. You know how my dad is like. Well, `kay," she added after a thought, "you don't know, cause you two haven't met , yet, but believe me, he's like how you've to be like for making me jump on your command."  
  
She smiled sadly and traced her finger down his cheek. "Too bad. But then you can tell Mark he doesn't have to spent the night at the hospital." Grinning as her boy-friend took on a slight shade of red, she said in the most innocent tone she could manage: "I'm the only one at work whose boy-friend lives with his dad. Kinda cute, isn't it?"  
  
Loyalty failed the doctors at this remark, and though they tried really hard, they couldn't manage to keep down the laughters, which wanted to desperately break free.  
  
"Real cute," Jesse gasped in between two laughing fits and patted Steve's shoulder assuringly. "See, kid, we always told you to not hurry when it comes to moving out. There's no need to hurry."  
  
"That's so funny, Jess," Steve said dryly, "really, but I think I just leave now, I have a bar to close up. And you should help Amanda over there," he added, pointing at the pathologist, who'd broken down on a chair, laughing, "I don't know if it is possible to die of laughing, but I'd say she's doing a good attempt at finding out."  
  
  
"S-sorry Steve," Amanda gasped and swept a finger through her wet eyes. "I ... *giggle* ... I wasn't laughing about you, really."  
  
"Nooo, pookie," Carlie soothed and kissed his cheek, "no one's laughing about you."  
  
Steve winced and closed his eyes just in time to hear an all but cried out "Pookie!!!" from his friends, who both ended up in laughing fits again.  
  
"I gotta go now," Carlie said and layed her arms around his neck, grinning at him. "Hope you'll think twice now, before you forget our next date." With that, she kissed him, turned, winked and left, chuckling.  
  
Steve sighed frustratedly and looked back at his two panting friends, who both had some serious breathing-troubles to cope with. "Glad you two had fun," he stated dryly.  
  
"Whatever you say - pookie."  
  
Laughter followed Steve all the way to the lift.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Unfortunately the amusement didn't last long and not many hours later, Dr. Jesse Travis found himself sprawled on the sofa in the Doctor's Lounge, waiting for "ER" to come up with a real patient some time soon. His grumpiness had returned with a vengeance once he'd become really bored, and having to examine two teenagers, who'd sprained their ankles at a party, hadn't exactly improved his mood. Wondering when his last great party had taken place, he glanced over at the coffee machine and decided it was too much of a way to make it in time before the commercial break.  
  
Yeah, he thought, he should call Rick some time, maybe they could spent an evening out like in the old days. After all, marriage wasn't exactly like inprisonment, now was it? And when did he and Steve last spent a night at "Bob's"? Well, what was that about marriage ... ?  
  
"Well, well ..." Amanda's voice caught his attention as he'd just begun to doze off at the hectic camera flics and the shouts of the actors.  
  
"Hey Amanda, wanna join?" he asked.  
  
"Uh, no. I don't like "ER", it's too unrealistic if you ask me. I mean, who would work in a hospital if he'd looked like George Clooney? Absolutely ridiculous. Great looking guys - they're all actors."  
  
"Uh-huh."  
  
Pause.   
  
"Where is Clooney, anyway?"  
  
Jesse sighed. "Left."  
  
"What d'you mean, left?"  
  
Sigh. "Left the show. Amanda, don't you have, like, corpses to see? Organs to weigh? Anything?"  
  
"Hm? No," she answered, not really paying attention. Her gaze was focused on the screen, while she slowly sank down on the sofa, pushing Jesse's feet aside in the process. "Who's that?" she asked, frowning. "I never saw him there. Who are all these people? Jess? Where are you going?"  
  
"I'm ..." he replied, turning from where he'd already made it to in order to flee the room, "uh, I've to see a patient."  
  
"Really? Who?"  
  
"Dunno yet. I'll find one, don't worry."  
  
And as if on cue, medics suddenly burst in, rolling two stretchers. Jesse rushed to their sides.  
  
"What you got?"  
  
"Father and daughter, both shot in the head. The woman's dead already, we couldn't stabilize her, but this one's here still breathing. Lost a lot of blood, though. Brain, too, I think."  
  
"Okay, we go in exam..." Jesse started, but froze when he cast a look on the woman lying on the stretcher, covered in blood. "Oh shit," he whispered.  
  
"Doctor?" one of the men asked urgently.  
  
Snapping back into doctor-mode, Jesse shook his head slightly. "Yeah, we go in exam one. Take her down to path immediately, `kay? Amanda!"  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Steve Sloan was a happy man, as we already have pointed out. Such a happy man was he, that he didn't even mind washing the dishes. He even whistled during his task. He never whistled. But things were about to change. He couldn't remember ever having been so utterly happy in his life before. Carlie Vitense brightened every waking moment of his day, and the night he would stop dreaming about her was yet to come.   
  
In short: Steve Sloan was in love. And how could he not have been? Actually he wondered why not everybody was in love with Carlie Vitense, for she was the warmest, sweetest, wittiest, funniest, most loveable person who'd ever walked on this planet, and those were facts and had nothing to do with him feeling like a teenager.   
  
Grinning, he placed another cup in the cupboard. Well, okay, maybe he did feel like a teenager and even behaved like one. So what? To quote Carlie, he still lived with his dad, and if that didn't gave him the right to do so, what did?  
  
Continuing his whistling and washing, he almost failed to hear the sound of the door being opened and closed again.  
  
"We're closed," he announced and stepped away from the sink to look who the intruder was, but smiled surprisedly, when he found it was Jesse.   
  
"Hey Steve," the young doctor said softly and rose his hand in a half-hearted attempt to wink. "Washing the dishes, huh?"  
  
"Yeah," Steve answered and frowned. Something wasn't right about his friend, he looked pale and unsure, his gaze never so much as darted off the ground, and he had to put his hands in his pocketts in order to keep them from fumbling around nervously.  
  
"Jesse? What's wrong?" the lieutenant asked and came nearer. He stopped, though, when Jesse stepped away from him, obviously in order to keep his distance.  
  
"Jess, wha..."  
  
"Carlie and Thomas Vitense were brought in tonight," he interrupted his friend and forced himself to look into his eyes, which widened in shock, understanding and the one thing that could be best described as knowledge.  
  
Steve remained silent, as the younger man went on: "They both received gun-shots to the head, ahm ... We tried to stabilize Mr. Vitense, but couldn't bring him back, and ... and Carlie had been already dead, Steve. I'm ... sorry. I'm so sorry."  
  
There was a very long silence. Steve stood where he was and stared at his friend, at what he'd just said, as if it, the information itself, was standing in front of him.  
  
Eventually, he turned and sat down at one of the tables, but continued to silently look at Jesse, who took in a deep breath and approached his friend.  
  
The distance he had so desperately needed as a doctor bringing the worst of messages, felt wrong now, and he crossed the room quietly to sit across his friend at the table.  
  
"Steve?" he asked, but received no answer.   
  
Knowing his friend too well, he didn't try any further, but just sat there with him, till the lieutenant finally stood, rubbing a shaking hand over his forehead.  
  
"I'm ..." Steve started, but didn't know how to end the sentence. Casting a helpless glance on the young doctor, all of a sudden he smiled slightly. He didn't know why. He had just wanted to smile. But it faded as quickly as it had appeared. "I better ..." he tried again and draw in a steadying breath, before finally saying: "I better go home, I ... ahm ..."  
  
"Yeah," Jesse nodded softly and stood also, "you do that. I close up here."   
  
"Yes." For another few seconds, Steve remained where he was, then turned. "My dad ...?" he asked, before he opened the door and looked back at Jesse, who shook his head.  
  
"He doesn't know, yet. Do you want me to call him?"  
  
"Yeah. Thanks."  
  
" `kay. - Steve," Jesse called him back, but found that he didn't know why. Equally helpless, he simply looked at his friend and closed his mouth.  
  
Steve nodded and left.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
More to come. By the way, I just wanted to mention that I'm still German, and I know my English's kinda ... ahm ... "German-trying-to-write-English"-like, but I hope it is readable and you liked the story nevertheless. See you - hopefully - all next chapie! 


	2. Leered 2

Hey! Thanks for all the reviews, you guys are kind as ever! Can´t say how much I love writing for you! (And I didn´t plan to get emotional here ... hmmm ... must be cause of Christmas or so.)  
  
As always, thanks to Pinky-kid (Whose birthday was yesterday, by the way! Anybody who hasn´t sung, yet, line up, please ...) for ... uh ... being Pinky-kid. Obst vor! Remember: It´s not easy to be small, it´s not easy to be tall, tam, tam ...  
  
And as for Regina, I´m so glad you´re still with us! Cute rules!  
  
Disclaimers still the same. I own the title role and the bad guy, but I´d give them gladly for ... Okay, okay, I shut up. Hmpf!  
  
Enjoy!  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"Hey Mark," Jesse called after his mentor and approached him quickly as he turned around to greet the young man with a tired smile.  
  
"Morning, Jesse."  
  
"How´s Steve?" Jesse asked, though, of course, he knew the answer. He wondered why exactly people did that - asking question they already knew the answer to. Perhaps it was because of the guilt they felt. The guilt of not being in the other one´s position. Of having made it out lucky this time. It had happened to someone else, and they felt guilty about it.  
  
"Ahm ... Okay, I guess," Mark replied, smiling kind of helplessly and running his thumb over his brow. "He went straight to bed last night, I didn´t get to talk to him much."  
  
"Well," Jesse started unsurely, but in an attempt to give some comfort, "sleeping´s good. He was probably in shock, maybe I should have brought him here or stuff. Dunno."  
  
"No," Mark objected softly and smiled again. It was almost a real Mark-smile, Jesse noticed with relief, and was surprised at this emotion right away. Why was he relieved? What had he expected Mark to be like this morning? His son´s girl-friend had been murdered the night before, so why would he not change his smiling-behaviour? What kind of person was he himself that he dared to feel relieved over anything?  
  
"No," Mark, having no idea of his colleague´s inner monologue, repeated. "You can´t fix everything in a hospital. Some shocks are meant to be felt."  
  
"Hm," Jesse made in the abscence of an idea what other noise to produce. He felt uncomfortable. He didn´t like wise sayings. He didn´t like the look in Mark´s eyes. "So," he finally started, when Mark thankfully had remembered that he had been on his way to somewhere and they both were walking down the hallway, "I take it Steve went to work this morning."  
  
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Mark nodding at this, but nothing else that could have been seen on the older man´s face. Walking while talking was a much more preferable combination to him than standing and talking, he decided.  
  
"Yes," the older doctor nodded, "but I doubt he´ll be on the case."  
  
"Because she was his girl-friend."  
  
"Right. But then, it might be the best after all, I don´t think ... Well," he chuckled after having made a slight pause, "you know Steve. He´ll probably investigate, anyway."  
  
Jesse frowned. "Don´t you think that´s the best way for him to cope with it? I mean, that´s what Steve´s like, right? He´s ... acting."  
  
Mark glanced at him and sighed finally. "I don´t know, Jesse," he said sadly, "I´ve never seen him like that. He´s so ..." Once again he stopped as if to think about what exactly he wanted to say, then gave up and smiled slightly at the younger man, before looking ahead again.  
  
For the first time Jesse could see how much it hurt the older man to know his son in such pain. Mark Sloan would have given everything to just end Steve´s suffering, and he would gladly have accepted Steve´s fate if it had meant for his son to walk out of this situation unbroken and unharmed. But it wasn´t possible. As a family, they broke together, and Jesse couldn´t help but notice how he himself started to crumble away, too. Again, he felt guilt floating through him, for how did he dare feeling like that? How did he dare feeling guilty. Yet, how should he feel?  
  
He was about to reply anything, though he didn´t have a clue, what, when Amanda Bentley´s voice called out from behind them.  
  
"Mark! Jesse!"  
  
Surprised at how alarmed she sounded, the men turned.  
  
"Hey," Jesse began, when she came to a full stop next to them. "What..."  
  
"Carlie," she cut him off. "Permission to do an autopsy on her was not granted. They won´t let me do it," she added seriously.  
  
Both Jesse´s and Mark´s eyes widened in disbelief.   
  
"You gotta be kidding," the younger man was the first to speak. "They have to, she was the victim of a crime! Whoever are "they", anyway?!"  
  
"The Vitense-lawyer," the pathologist replied and produced a sheet of paper. "Here. Somehow he found a way to convince the judge, that an autopsy wouldn´t be necessary and that therefore the body shall be given to her relatives instantly. They´re coming to collect her body today."  
  
"Wouldn´t be necessary?!" Jesse shouted, while Mark Sloan had took the paper from Amanda and read it silently. "She was shot! Isn´t it, like, a law that there has to be an autopsy in such cases?"  
  
"Yes," Mark nodded.  
  
"So?" Jesse looked at him agitatedly.  
  
"So normally," the older man replied and handed the paper back to Amanda, "there is an autopsy, unless you have a very good lawyer."  
  
"That sucks," Jesse stated frustradedly.  
  
Mark nodded slowly, then glanced at Amanda. "Did you tell Steve?"  
  
"No. He´s not on the case. I talked to a Detective Leer, he´s the officer responsible for ..." Suddenly feeling obviously uncomfortable, she bowed her head a little and even shifted her weight from one foot to the other. It was a completey untypical gesture for her, for the very last thing Amanda Benltley usually was, was unsure, and so she found herself being looked at puzzled by her friends as she continued:  
  
"Ahm, he´s, like, in organized crime, as far as I got it."  
  
"What d´you mean?" Mark asked, though he already sensed that he probably wouldn´t like the answer.  
  
"It seems as if Mr. Vitense was in on some deals concerning ... inner organs," she finished and sighed deeply, watching in sympathy as the information started to sink in. She´d gone there herself less than an hour ago and could still feel the shock it had risen inside her.  
  
"Y-you mean he belonged to the mop?" Jesse bursted out after a moment of silence. His eyes had reached the size of some not really small vegetables, and he looked utterly dismayed.   
  
Mark remained silent, but rubbed a thumb over his brow. Jesse had seen this gesture on him often enough during the day by now, that he knew for sure things weren´t about to brighten up or become better. Actually, it felt as though something was just beginning, something none of them wanted to begin.  
  
"Sort of," Amanda answered his question. "I don´t know if it´s actually the mop, y´know, but he was in on something, that´s for sure. Leer said he and his colleagues had been looking for a chance to frame him for months now." She paused. "He, uhm, he doubts that ... Carlie had something to do with it. Looks like she didn´t even know ..."  
  
"Course not!" Jesse stated firmly, but calmed down immediately under his friends´ startled looks. "I-I mean, course she didn´t ... Hey, it´s Carlie, we´re talking about here, `kay? She´d never done anything like that."  
  
They all knew what the sentence was really like: Steve would have never loved her like he had if ...   
  
Mark sighed. You could practically see how he´d aged for the last few seconds. Frowning in deep sympathy, Amanda looked at him, when she replied: "Leer´s fairly sure she didn´t. He´s gonna prove it, too."  
  
As silence once more settled over the small team, Mark all of a sudden glanced at his watch, mumbled something about rounds and coffee and turned to walk away.  
  
The two remaining friends watched him silently.  
  
"She wasn´t in on it," Jesse finally said as if to no one in particular. "We knew her. She wasn´t."  
  
Amanda eyed him, frowning. His features were drawn with worry, an impression seldomly found there. To her surprise she found that it made him look even younger, like a little boy who´d just been said "Life´s not fair" for the very first time. Since that was definitely not the case, the pathologist wondered even more how her friend had managed to beware his air of pure innocence over the years.  
  
"I know," she nodded. "I don´t believe it, too. She was probably just at the wrong place at the wrong time."  
  
He didn´t answer to that, but asked, without looking at her. "Does Steve know that, too?"  
  
"I don´t know," she answered.   
  
"Hm. Well. I, uh, I have a patient to see, Amanda," he announced, suddenly becoming very hectic. "Gotta go. See you."  
  
"Yeah," Amanda murmured and watched him head off towards the lift.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Jesse had always like the precinct. Not only because he had watched every single episode of "Hill Street Blues", but also because it was the one place symbolizing the specialty of his life in LA. The precinct was where the team met if their other places weren´t sufficient anymore. Here Jesse had always felt just how much he was involved in solving a case, in the actual police work, and, of course, it had always been exciting.   
  
Right now, the actual police work seemed pointless to him. If it meant chasing after criminals you couldn´t nail down, couldn´t arrest, like Mr. Vitense, it had to be frustrating. Innocent people died, and maybe you were the one who was to break the news to their relatives. Sometimes Jesse thought about just how much his and Steve´s jobs resembled each other. They both should have known better by now, about death.  
  
Entering the lieutenant´s working area, he stopped and sighed. What did they know? he wondered.  
  
Steve was sitting at his desk, writing something down in a file, which lay upfolded in front of him. The way in which his shoulders were slumped forward, how his head was bowed just a tiny bit more than necessary, were the first signs of his state.   
  
When he noticed Jesse aproaching him, he lifted his upper body and smiled, but it never reached his eyes.  
  
Tired, he looked, Jesse found. Tired of many things.   
  
"Jess," Steve greeted his friend friendly, though even his voice betrayed his seemingly casual behaviour. Jesse wondered if he just imagined it or if Steve actually talked slower. But then, did it matter? What needed to be said didn´t fit in words.  
  
"Hey Steve, how´s it going?" the young doctor asked, smiling, and winced inwardly at this clever opening. How could it possibly be going?! "I hear you´re not on Carlie´s case," he added quickly, for now the topic had been brought up, anyway.  
  
"That´s right," Steve nodded and frowned. "That´s why you came here?"  
  
"No. I ..." Actually, he didn´t have a clue about why exactly he´d gone there. Smiling wryly, he shrugged. "I, uh, just wanted to ask if you want me to close up "Bob´s" tonight."  
  
The lieutenant frowned. "Hm. Well, since it´s your turn, anyway, I´d say that´d be great."  
  
Oups. "My turn," Jesse stuttered. "Ah - right. My turn. Right."  
  
"Right," Steve repeated mockingly. Even a small grin could be seen hushing over his features. "Anything else I can do for you?"  
  
"No. Yes. I mean ..." Noticing his nervous gestures, Jesse shoved his hands into his pockets fiercefully. "I just wondered if perhaps you want me to ... dunno, take over your shifts at "Bob´s" this week, y´know, so that you can ... " He trickled off, not knowing what he expected Steve to do in his spare time, anyway. What did he do when he was alone with his grief?  
  
" ... stare at my ceiling?" the older man finished Jesse´s sentence helpfully. One couldn´t tell from the look of his eyes if he was touched or amused in a bitter way.  
  
"Yeah," the young doctor said lamely, realizing how great an offer this had been. The least a person like Steve needed in times like these was too much time for himself. "Something like that. `kay, then I guess the answer´s no. That´s ... fine. I don´t think I could´ve managed it, anyway."  
  
Since the doctor didn´t attempted to turn and leave now, or move at all, that is, Steve sighed slightly and stood up. "Jess, why´re you really here?"  
  
"Ahm ..."  
  
"See, I´m appreciating this, but I don´t need to be checked out, `kay? I´m fine." Fine as a snowman in the springtime, he thought, but repeated: "I am."  
  
"I wasn´t checking on you," Jesse hurried to say. "I was ..." Worried, would have been the correct answer. He couldn´t remember the last time he´d been so worried about someone, and he didn´t like the feeling. Especially not when Steve was concerned. You normally didn´t need to worry about Steve. He´d always been coping okay with everything. He probably even believed himself that he was coping okay with this, too.   
  
Jesse found that he was really bad at being worried, though he´d never thought that.   
  
"Hey Sloan," a deep male voice fortunately saved the young man from finishing the unfinishingable sentence, and when Jesse turned, he saw a tall, dark-haired man approach Steve´s desk, smiling at both the lieutenant and the doctor.  
  
"Grady," Steve said friendly and pointed at Jesse. "Meet my business-partner Dr. Jesse Travis. Jesse, this is Grady Leer, he´s on the Vitense-case."  
  
Jesse frowned at Steve´s titling of the case, but didn´t have enough time to shoot him a glance, for Grady Leer enthusiasticly accepted the doctor´s unconsciously outstretched hand and presented him with a bright smile.  
  
"Dr. Travis," he said. "Pleasure to meet you. I´ve heard a lot about you. Not from him," he laughed, when Jesse´s questioning gaze flew to Steve, "my sister was brought to CG last summer, she´d broken her arm doing ... I don´t remember what crazy sort of sport, and then I had to listen to all these hospital stories of hers."  
  
"Ah ..." Jesse made uncertainly. "Leer? I don´t think I ..."  
  
"Well, she certainly still remembers you," Grady Leer stated, grinning.  
  
"Yes, few people forget our Jesse," Steve said dryly, ignored the look-to-kill which was placed on him and asked: "So what did they say? About Liotta?"  
  
Leer´s smile faded instantly. "I´m sorry, Steve, they settled for undercover. But," he added quickly when the lieutenant´s frustration was beginning to become obvious, "we´ll get him. I promise. And he might even go down for more than murder then, don´t forget that."  
  
"I don´t care about for what else he´s going to get toasted!" Steve shot back furiously."Murder is enough."   
  
"Murder would be enough," Leer corrected calmly, "if we could prove it. But we can´t."  
  
"So what, we just let it go, let him get away with it?!"  
  
"No," Leer objected firmly. "We´ll frame him, and then we´ll get him. If I arrested him now, he´d be out again just like that." He snipped his fingers loudly. "Is that what you want?"  
  
Staring at his colleague, Steve finally drew in a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair. "Sorry, Grady. I know you´re right."  
  
"We´ll get him," Leer said after a short pause and watched as Steve sat down behind his desk again.  
  
"Yeah," the lieutenant nodded.  
  
"`kay," Leer said. Eventually he turned. "See you, Sloan. Dr. Travis." With that he left.  
  
Jesse waited a few seconds, before he sat down at Steve´s desk, too, and asked: "What was that all about?"  
  
"Raymond Liotta," Steve answered without looking at his friend. "He´s ... was a business-partner of Vitense´s. Grady thinks he killed them."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Dunno. I´m not on the case. Money," the lieutenant added tiredly after a moment´s thought. "I guess. Or maybe something completely different. I don´t know."  
  
"But they can´t arrest him," Jesse said, though it sounded more like a question.  
  
"As you heard. They wanna sent someone in there. The company or whatever you´d call it. Undercover. They planed to do that for quite some time now, but they never got permission or money and stuff. Till now," he added with a bitter smile.   
  
"`cause now it´s double-murder."  
  
"Right. Now he´s done something stupid. I bet Organized Crime´s throwing a party right now." Chuckling unhumorously, he swept a hand over his face. "At least they get him," he then said ernestly.  
  
"Yes," Jesse agreed, and shuddered at his own completely toneless voice.   
  
Silence threatened to settle upon them once more, till the young doctor rose to his feet."I better go now, you´ve to work, right?"  
  
"Yeahp. See you. - And, uhm, Jesse," he called after his friend. "Thanks for the offer, y´know, "Bob´s", but I can do it, really."  
  
"Sure."  
  
With that, Jesse left. He didn´t notice Grady Leer´s gaze that followed him from Steve´s desk to the door.But then he probably wouldn´t have made anything out of it, anyway.  
  
  
  
  
  
"BBQ Bob´s" was closed. And as on most evenings, when he´d been the one to close up, Jesse Travis sat alone in his bar and played chess against his computer, losing. It had become a habit of his quite some time ago, though he couldn´t exactly say why. He liked chess, but a blindfolded dove could have beaten him. Still, he liked thinking and planning, which his computer would declare to nonsense the second he would tipe in his solution.   
  
Most of all, though, he liked the quietness of the closed bar, and since he only played chess at these occasions, it by now belonged to the satisfying feeling of a long day fading out. Jesse played chess out of traditional reasons, a very Jess-like thing to do, as his friends would have pointed out if they´d known about it.  
  
He was losing the game tonight. That was hardly surprising (To be honest, Jesse would have probably dropped dead out of shock if he ever won against anyone.), but this night it frustrated him. He was starting to get angry at the ever-winning machine and made mistakes even he normally wouldn´t have managed to do. Since he never exactly concentraded on the games, his worries were no reason for his disastrous playing. Something different was nagging him, and actually it was the fact that he couldn´t find out what, that made him so angry.  
  
"Mated. Play again?" the screen showed him in friendly orange letters.  
  
Groaning, Jesse placed his chin on his palm. "One day they gonna invent computers which will laugh at me and wise-crack," he mumbled to the machine. "Then I´ll probably love you, but as for tonight ..."  
  
Further statements, which might have ended up in serious insults, were cut off by a loud knock on the door.  
  
"We´re closed," Jesse announced, but stood up, anyway. Experience had taught him that people seldomly left after having been told the bar was closed. They´d probably known that when they´d knocked, for the sign on the door was turned to "Closed", and therefore whatever they wanted was equally probably important.  
  
Or they were drunk.  
  
"Dr. Travis," a deep, male voice called out from outside, "it´s Grady Leer. I gotta talk to you. Please."  
  
Frowning, Jesse crossed over to the door and opened it.  
  
"Thanks. Hi," smiled Grady Leer and entered.   
  
Jesse watched him confusedly. He was still holding the door, when Leer had already sat down on the bar and taken off his coat. "Ah ... hi," the young doctor finally managed and closed the door. "What can I do for you?"  
  
"A lot," Leer answered. "And not only for me. But we shall come to that later. Ahm - how `bout coffee?" he grinned.  
  
"Detective Leer ..." Jesse began from where he stood, but was interrupted by the detective´s friendly: "Grady, just Grady. Jesse," he added with a "right, pal?"-look.  
  
Jesse nodded irritatedly, then said: "Grady, what do you want?"  
  
"Don´t you wanna sit down?"  
  
"I wanna know what you want. It´s late, I´m not in a particular good mood today, and ..."  
  
"I ... we need you," Grady Leer, once more, interrupted him.  
  
Jesse fell silent, surprised. "Huh?" was all he managed after a short pause.  
  
"I think you really should sit down," Grady repeated, and this time Jesse obeyed and sat down next to him at the bar. "You heard what I told Sloan today, right? About Liotta and the undercover assignment?"  
  
"Yeahp."  
  
"Okay. Do you know what sort of business Vitense and Liotta had? What they sold?"  
  
"Organs," the doctor replied. "I understood it that Liotta sells organs."  
  
"Right," Grady Leer nodded, looking as if proud of the best pupil in class. "They´re dealing with organs. Now, where do they get the "goods" from? From desperate people, people who sell a kidney or a lung or whatever because they are in depts. They might fear for their family or - whatever. You probably know as much about these things as I do."  
  
He made a short pause as if he wanted to give Jesse a chance to answer, but the doctor remained silent.   
  
"They have several people woking for them. People who do the actual operations, people who examine the organs, people like that. The whole stuff, `cept for the bosses - and lawyers," he added with a chuckle, "consists of doctors. Usually residents who want to earn a few dollars or drug addicts who are paid in whatever. Doctors are the only people those guys have working for them. Do you follow me?"  
  
"Yes," Jesse replied slowly, a dreadful look had formed in his eyes, "but I don´t like where you´re heading."  
  
Leer looked at him closely, then turned slightly, so that he was facing the doctor now. "Listen, Jesse, I don´t know any lawyers. Okay? And time´s running out. I´ve waited so long for this permission, I won´t screw it now. I can´t sent any of my men in there, they´re no doctors. You can´t learn the things you´d need to know in such a short amount of time. I need a doctor to do this."  
  
"You better go now," Jesse said cooly.  
  
"Please," Grady Leer hastened to say, "at least think about it."  
  
He was about to add something, but was cut off by the doctor´s firm objection. "What do you want from me?!" he snapped and stood as if to defend himself. "That I join the club and mutilate healthy people?! Have you lost your mind? I swore an oath to ..."  
  
"You wouldn´t have to do that," Leer tried to calm him down. "You could just, like, examine the goods. There´re a lot of other things you could do, like ... ahm ..." He was gesturing with his hands as if looking for words. "Dunno. Examine the goods," he finally repeated.  
  
"Examine the ... No!" Jesse replied firmly. "I won´t do it!"  
  
"And what about Liotta?" Leer asked."He killed your friend´s girl. And he´ll get away with it. Unless we," he added and pointed first and himself then at the miserable looking doctor, "prevent it."  
  
"There has to be another way," Jesse said, though he could hear his own voice sounding a little weaker than before, less confident, less convincing.  
  
"It´s up to you, Jesse," the detective said casually and lifted his head to one side slightly. He looked about as "Got you!" as one man could look.  
  
Casting him a "not fair!"-look in response, Jesse slowly moved back to the bar. "Steve was Carlie´s boy-friend, and I´m his business-partner. Liotta will easily find out and get suspicious."  
  
"He´s been in Europe for the last thirteen month and just returned two days ago. Besides, Carlie didn´t tell her family about Steve."  
  
"How can you be so sure `bout this?"  
  
"That´s my job," the man smiled. "Trust me, Liotta doesn´t have a clue."  
  
"I don´t know if I´m ready to trust you with my life, yet," the doctor replied dryly, but asked after a short pause: "How do ... would I get in, if I decided to do it? Place an advertisement in the newspaper? "Young, good-looking doctor looks for illegale side income"?"  
  
"I´d place that ad for you," Grady said with a confident smile. "Don´t worry, I know how to get people into business. It´s ..."  
  
" ... your job, right," Jesse finished with a humorless smile. He could feel himself giving in a little more with every second, though he the knot in his stomach advised him not to. "What d´you want me to do once in? Apart from breaking my oath, that is."  
  
"The same you want," Grady answered innocently. "Proof."  
  
"Proof," the young man repeated, glancing into the other one´s eyes. Something in there bothered him, though he couldn´t say what it was. Somehow their emerald green color sent a slight shudder along his spine. Yet, the man was right about one thing.  
  
"What about Steve?"  
  
Leer frowned. Before he could verbalize his question, Jesse continued: "He´ll never let me to it. He´ll probably lock me up and throw away the key."  
  
"Oh, no," Grady said as if explaining the simpliest thing in the world to the dumpest man walking on it´s surface. "You mustn´t tell anyone. Not Steve, not your boss, not your parents or friends or whoever. No one. It´s important that you don´t tell anyone, Jesse. Your life my depend on it. - That is," the detective added with a wicked grin, "if you do it."  
  
Ignoring Leer´s wise-crack, the doctor frowned. "How am I supposed to keep this a secret? I´ve to work, I ..."  
  
"Right, and that is good. You´ve to continue your work at CG and here in order to not rise suspicion. The doctors working for those people are all having regular jobs. With you having your shifts at CG and still work for them in addition to those, they´ll think you´re one desperate kid. It´ll make it easier for you to convince them. It´ll be much safer than the alternative."  
  
Since Jesse wasn´t interested in any alternative not being safe, he didn´t bother to ask. There was another thing on his mind, anyway. "Desperate indeed." he nodded wryly. "I´m very likely going to become pretty desperate when working 30 hours a day 9 days a week. How you think I´ll be able to manage that? In case you haven´t noticed, yet, I´m a sort of busy "kid". I already have two full-time jobs."  
  
"And yet you´re sitting here playing chess with your laptop," Grady said casually.  
  
Jesse closed his mouth, but scowled at him.   
  
After a short pause, Grady rose his voice again without looking at the young doctor. "So, when would you like to have your interview at the firm?"  
  
"My shift ends at eight."  
  
"Eight it is then," Leer nodded, smiled and stood to leave the bar. Before he opened the door, he turned once more. "And, Jesse - don´t worry, they´ll take you."  
  
With that he left, closing the door behind him.  
  
The doctor said in the quietness of his bar and stared ahead. "Side income," he mumbled to himself. "Great. Just great."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The interview was held in Mr. Liotta´s office and consisted of a few questions concerning the young man´s motives and experiences. It was, Jesse thought surprisedly, a typical interview as you would have expected it to be like in a serious firm. Nothing that was asked or answered would have suggested it to be illegal.   
  
At first, anyway.  
  
"So," Mr. Liotta asked after he´d received obviously satisfying information about Jesse´s job and qualities, "how did you come to hear about us, Dr. Travis?"  
  
Jesse swallowed dryly and smiled slightly. Now they were beginning the part of the interview that would consist of lies. He went over the profile Leer had made up for him, relieved to find that he hadn´t forgotten anything. As Leer´s whole plan, this profile was perfect. "That´s my job," the detective had recited his favourite line, when he´d filled the young doctor in on his fake personality earlier that afternoon.  
  
It was that of a young resident, who´d turned to drugs out of exhaustion and depressions due to him being constantly over-worked. A very realistic profile Jesse had thought, and quite easy to play, too, for he´d seen a lot of promising young doctors who´d end up like that during his career. He knew the symptoms, and he didn´t have to play his nervousness when sitting in front of Leer, anyway. Actually, he was down right scared of the man.  
  
At 35, Raymond Liotta had built up a business his former friends and partners could only have dreamed of. He was respected as well as feared among the gross of the people working in his area, and the death of his Californian business-partner had made him even more powerfull.   
  
Power suited him. It belonged into the dark brown eyes of his, which lay deep in his smooth, attractive face. Boyish looks mixed with obvious cruelity gave an image even more frightening than a scarred, drawn set of features would have been. He had a friendly smile, that never reached his eyes, and the way he watched the younger man in front of him showed his carefulness, his knowledge about everything and everyone.  
  
For a short moment, Jesse feared the man might have found out about his lie, before he´d even had the chance to tell it, but remembering his task, he regained his courage and answered: "A friend of mine told me about you and your ... firm. He said if I´d ever be in the need of money ..." He left the sentence unfinished and lookd down as if nervous. Again, he didn´t have to play it.  
  
"A friend," Liotta repeated friendly. "Care to give me a name?"  
  
Jesse was prepared. "Simon. Tim Simon" he answered, looking up again. It was a name Leer had told him to use. He didn´t know anything about this guy, if there was one of this name, anyway, but fortunately Liotta seemed to recognize it and smiled even brighter.  
  
"Good old Timmy," he announced with a soft laugh. "Haven´t seen the kid in years! What´s he doing now?"  
  
"He´s in San Fran," Jesse answered, and again received a believing gaze from his to-be-employer. "Works for a place called ... uh ... something," he finished with a nervous laugh. "Forgot the name. Sometimes I phone him, but, you know how that is, right?" he added with a wry grin, that faded away instantly. He felt it to be oddly dangerous to grin at the man.  
  
Liotta nodded. "Right." He made a short pause, before continuing: "And are you in the need of money know, Dr. Travis?"  
  
"Ahm," Jesse made and looked away, then back, then down. "Ah ... uh, sort of, yeah."  
  
"Hm. Or maybe," Liotta said after a moment and leaned back in his big leather chair, "maybe good old Timmy told you that we pay some of our doctors with something different than money. Something," he added, looking directly at the fidgeting young man, "a man in your position may have more use for."  
  
Jesse waited a second, before he lifted his gaze to return the look with faked determination. "Maybe," was all he said.  
  
Seconds passed, in which Liotta continued to simply look at the doctor. Then, all of a sudden, he leaned forward again, opened a drawer in his desk and produced a smal, white pill, which he placed on the table in front of Jesse.   
  
Carefully, as if he wasn´t sure if it was allowed, Jesse´s gaze wandered down to the pill. He couldn´t see what sort of drug it was. It could be everything.   
  
Liotta leaned back again, waiting.   
  
Time slowed down, it seemed, while Jesse was staring at the pill. Somewhere deep inside him, he´d feared it woul come to this, but then - could he let it be now?   
  
Slowly, reluctantly, he reached out to take the pill and held it in front of his face. Suppressing a smile, he placed it in his mouth and swallowed.  
  
More seconds passed, Liotta continued to look at him. Nothing happened. Jesse wondered what he had expected? That pink elephants would start to fly up and down behind the window instantly? He knew he couldn´t let it on that this was the very first time in his life he´d taken drugs, and so he himself continued to avoid Liotta´s gaze, as if ashamed of his weakness. He figured such behaviour would fit to his profile.  
  
"Please leave your number when you go," Liotta finally said and turned with his chair, facing the window now. "We will call you every time we have a job for you."  
  
Jesse waited for another thing to be said and, when it was sure there wasn´t more to come, stood up and approached the door.  
  
"Welcome to the team, Dr. Travis," Liotta called after him, without turning around.   
  
Jesse left without another word. As soon as he´d dictated his number to the secretary in the office, he ran outside and to his car. He couldn´t risk throwing up anywhere near the building, but knew he had to some time soon if he wanted to avoid the effects whatever he´d just swallowed might have on him.  
  
Driving as fast as he could without actually killing someone, he reached CG, sprinted inside and into the men´s room where he desperately tried to fullfill his task.  
  
But no matter how painfully violently he retched, he couldn´t manage to get rid off the drug. Swearing at himself for not having eaten since breakfast, he slumped back against the wall exhaustedly. He was sweating by now and could feel his heart run a marathon without his feet joining in.   
  
His hands started trembling, yet, he didn´t feel weak. Actually, his whole body felt like joining in this sprint of his heart by now, and, wiping the sweat off his forehead, he stood shakily, leaning against the wall for support.  
  
Now fairly sure that it had been a stimulant, he´d taken, he rolled his eyes at the sudden urge to do something. Work. He felt as if he could have worked for a week without sleep. Slowly, though he tried his best to avoid it, the effects widened to his mind to, telling him that he really could do anything he wanted at the moment, that he shouldn´t waste the energy, since he hadit now, anyway.  
  
Drawing in a deep, calming breath, Jesse opened the door and stepped over to the sink. He splashed a few handfull of water in his face and looked at his image in the mirror. Okay, he wasn´t used to drugs. his paleness and rapidly widening eyes showed that, but he didn´t inted to take another one, anyway. It had just been this one, and it had been necessary in order to convince Liotta of his story. He wouldn´t be forced to do ever do it again, he assured himself.   
  
And he would definitely kill Leer when he next saw him, he decided.  
  
Feeling better by this thought already, Jesse dried his face with his sleeve, drove a still trembling hand through his hair, as if the gesture would sweep away the obvious signs of his condition, and left the room.  
  
It was a quiet night, and since there weren´t any patients to treat, Jesse decided to have a coffee in the Doctor´s Lounge. Or maybe a glass of water, he rethought his plan when he found his hands still shaking badly as he opened the door.  
  
A surprised look was placed on him. "Jesse," Mark Sloan said, "I thought your shift was over. What´re you still doing here?"  
  
Cursing him for having forgotten about that, Jesse smiled sheepishly and made his way to the coffee machine. "Ah ... I changed with ... ahm, I checked on a patient in recovery. I´ll be leaving in a second."  
  
It hadn´t sounded very convincing, and he winced as he felt Mark´s frown behind his back.  
  
"Are you all right?" came in unevitable question. "You look pale."  
  
"Sure," he hastened to say and turned to present his mentor with a bright grin. "Sure, I´m fine, just fine. Tired, though. Yeah, tired. You know what, I think I really should go home and get some rest. Yeah, I think, uhm ..." he continued babbling and placed the cup he´d grabbed back on the shelf. Practically running out of the room, he called "Bye Mark!" over his shoulder and fled.  
  
Staring behind his young colleague in startled surprise, Mark could feel a knot of dread built up inside him. He shortly thought about following Jesse, but decided against it. The young doctor was, after all, a grown up man. Besides, he admitted to himself, he wasn´t feeling up to handling anything else these days, anyway. All he wished was to go home after his shift and find Steve grouse at the case he was working on or the fact that his dad had missed an important game on TV again.  
  
But that wasn´t going to happen. Things had changed. They had changed.  
  
Sighing, Mark sipped at his coffee and continued to read the article that was laying in front of him.When he finally left the room, he couldn´t remember a word of what he´d just read.  
  
  
  
  
  
To to be continued ... 


	3. Leered 3

Hey guys! I´m going hoooooome!!! Hooray! Home for christmas! Food! Family! Joy to the world! `kay, I shut up. Anyway, since I promised I´d have the third chapter done before christmas, here it is. Hope you like it.  
  
Thanks for the reviews everybody! I was partying as always when reading them. Grin. You just can make one feel so great. The real spirit of christmas!  
  
Special Thanks to Pinky-kid for the precise description of what they were DOING there (Grin.) and my christmas-poxes! And, hey, she´s gonna present us all with a new chaaaaaaaaaaapter soon! Hooray!!!  
  
Disclaimers still the same, I neither own the cool and the cute ones, nor the three nerds. They belong either to EUROPA Cassettes or Alfred Hitchcock, I don´t know for sure. Anyway, I´m just borrowing them, too. I´ve no intention of keeping them, they´re annoying!  
  
Last but not least: Merry Christmas to you all!!! Have yourself a merry little chris... Gee, I gotta stop listening to these songs all day long.   
  
And a happy new year!!! Full of great stories by all of you!   
  
  
  
  
  
  
Jesse´s shift started at five o´clock in the morning. At any other day he would have moaned about it, but today he was fairly sure he´d have died of exhaustion by then, anyway.  
  
The whole night long he´d paced his apartment - noticing just then how tiny it really was - gone to bed and standing up again several times, for his eyes didn´t obey to the comand "Close!" anymore, and talked to himself. Now, after hours of such exercises, he was totally spent and felt about as tired as a person possibly couldwithout falling into a coma.   
  
It was three o´clock. If it wouldn´t have been too exhausting, he probably would have cried, he thought. But so he just sat on his sofa, staring at the sun, which rose dramatically outside his window. The whole performance was utterly breathtaking, a fact the young spectator tried to ignore, for he found it hard enough to draw breath into his lungs without nature interfering. Breathing was so exhausting.   
  
Slowly, Jesse´s gaze wandered over to his coffee machine, but the bare thought of going over there, of actually placing one foot in front of the other, was enough to make his head throb, and he decided to have the first coffee of the day at the hospital. If he´d ever made it there.  
  
Maybe he shouldn´t go, anyway. Maybe he should just continue to sit here, let the sun rise ...  
  
His eyes were about to fall shut, when he suddenly heard an all too familiar noise out of his bed-room. Beep, beep, beep.   
  
With his eyes still half-closed, he frowned. Who would call him two hours before his shift started? Changing from a tired man to a tired doctor, he finally stood and rushed - relatively speaking - to his bed-room. Grabbing the small device, he stopped the beeping and looked at the number shown on the display.  
  
It was the number Liotta´s secretary had given him the day before. Startled, he stared at it as if it would change into another set of numbers under his glare.  
  
It didn´t. Well, he thought, he shouldn´t be surprised at being called to his new job at this time of the day after all. The patients probably had to come in for the operation before their jobs started or so. Probably they were thrown out the second they woke up afterwards, Jesse mused. Hello - Thankyou - Goodbye.  
  
He grimaced at the thought, but remembered that Leer had told him he wouldn´t have to do operations. Speaking of Leer, he hadn´t even informed him about his success at the interview. Cursing himself, he sat down on the bed. He´d been supposed to call the detective after the interview, but he´d been busy throwing up then, he thought sarcastically, and remembered that he still at some yelling to do when talking to Leer.  
  
Anyway, he hadn´t called him, so Leer probably didn´t even know Operation Liotta was on. He wouldn´t have made preparations in order to guarantee Jesse´s safety then, would he?  
  
The number still blinked greenishly on the display, Jesse ran a nervous hand through his messy hair. Could he just not answer the call? Or might that endanger the whole mission? What would Liotta make out of it, when he´d hear that the new kid had failed to answer his very first call?  
  
"This sucks, this sucks, this sucks," Jesse muttered and picked up the phone.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"Doctors!" Steve Sloan moaned, when he and his father turned aound a corner in the hallway on their way to the Doctor´s Lounge. He had just been on the wrong (aka receiving) end of another one of his father´s lectures about why it showed a lack of style if one liked the food being served in the hospital canteen.  
  
"Here they are, having this great place right in front of their noses, and what do they do?!"  
  
"Breathe through the mouth?" Mark suggested and added at Steve´s scowling gaze: "Y´know, I think I´m gonna have this DNA-test done some time soon now."  
  
Steve chuckled slightly. It was the first time in two days he´d ever so much as honestly smiled, and Mark felt like hugging him here and there for the much missed sight. Since that was out of question, he joined in the chuckling and patted his son´s shoulder parentally.  
  
It wasn´t exactly getting better, but it was heading somewhere near there. It had turned out to be a good thing, though none of them would have anticipated that, that Steve wasn´t in on Carlie´s case. Therefore he had the distance he needed to grieve about her, to feel the actual loss rather than to seek for revenge. He was being posted by his colleagues naturally, but he was taking things slowly. A sign only his father could read about how very much this actually affected him.   
  
Mark wasn´t sure, yet, if he took this change in his son´s character as a good or bad sign, though he tended for good. Steve had loved Carlie so much, he couldn´t even hide behind his job, his anger or anything now that she was gone. He could do nothing, but feel the pain. The remarkably positive thing about it, which had striked the concerned father as new and worryingly first, was that Steve did just that. He felt the pain. And eventually he would get over it. He was coping.   
  
Anyway, things didn´t go back to normal by themselves, so Mark had decided to help them a little by calling Steve and inventing him over to the canteen for lunch. The lieutenant had gladly accepted. After the first day of shock, he now started to feel how much he seeked his father´s and friends´ help and company.   
  
They continued to drabble on about wether or not the hospital food and already been in Europe with Roosevelt, when they reached and entered the Lounge, where they were quieted down by the sight that greeted them there.  
  
Amanda Bentley was sitting at a table, reading a newspaper, sipping at her coffee from time to time. Next to her, on the sofa, lay Jesse Travis, curled up into a small ball, sound asleep. A soft snoring could be heard in the absolute silence of the room.  
  
The pathologist lifted her head and found herself being eyed questioningly. "I didn´t have the heart to wake him."  
  
Nodding, Steve crossed over to the sofa and ruttled the sleeping doctor´s shoulder . "Jesse!" he called out loud, then shrugged at the reprimanding look Amanda shot him. "I have no heart. - Jesse, your shift at "Bob´s" start in half an hour! Jess!"  
  
"Mnhmpfgnm," Jesse made protestingly and tried to roll away from the rough hands. Still more asleep than awake, he mixed up the directions and rolled to the wrong end. With a low thud he connected with the ground.  
  
"Ah ..." Steve said startled while looking down at the heap of doctor, who began to move slowly, moaning in the process. "Oups."  
  
"Ow!" Jesse had sat up and rubbed a hand along his aching spine, glancing at the lieutenant scornfully. "What did you do that for?!"  
  
"To wake you," Steve replied sweetly and reached out to help his friend to his feet, but was only rewarded with a dirty look.   
  
With another groan, Jesse dragged himself off the floor, wiping imaginary dusk off his scubs. Noticing Amanda´s amused smile, he frowned. "How long did I sleep?"  
  
"Quite a while," she answered. "Your shift´s over."  
  
"No, it starts," Steve objected.   
  
"Oh shi..." Jesse swore softly and hit his forehead frustradedly. "Was that today? Damn. I only meant to sit here for second!" he told no one in particular and rubbed a hand over his face, trying to clean it from the just-woken-up-expression.  
  
"Well, it didn´t surprise me," Amanda said. "You looked like fainting."  
  
Grimacing, Jesse decided to ignore the comment and drove a hand through his hair in order to get it back in place. His friends didn´t need to know he had felt like fainting, too.  
  
The work a the firm´s practice had turned out to be a little more demanding than he´d thought it to be. No, he hadn´t needed operating on someone, but he had been the one supposed to check on the patient afterwards. His assumption that they threw out their clients after the medical procedure had been a little exaggerated - they did care about wether or not the poor guy survived. Therefore Jesse had spent three hours of watching over the patient - a man about his age who had sold one of his kidneys for whatever reason - running tests on him (For he´d been the only one there - literally.) and the organ. And quite a time the drugged man had given him. He obviously hadn´t been in shape for the operation, a fact that was making him pay now.   
  
But eventually Jesse had been released by another doctor, a somewhat old looking man named Bill, who´d refused to say anything but what concerned the patient to his young colleague. Tired beyond caring, Jesse had filled him in and left the practice.  
  
The practice. It actually was one, they even treated real patients there twice a week, for it belonged to an old friend of Liotta. But two rooms it had which none of the lucky patients who consulted the doctor due to a cold or a headache would ever see. Those two were the operating room - a small, patheticly equiped, dark room - and the revocery, where Jesse assumed he would spent most of his time during the undercover assignment.  
  
He regretted his decision already. Looking at the man on the stretcher, who´d mumbled softly in his fevered sleep, had sent waves of guilt through his mind. This wasn´t supposed to happen. The guy had been, though not actually fit, healthy. To remove a completely funcitioning organ out of the need of money ... Jesse shuddered at the thought. He couldn´t understand why any doctor would agree to this perversity.   
  
Though he had been even more tired after his work at the practice, it had actually been a relief to return to CG, to work in a real hospital, to help people, instead of simply assuring their survival. He´d been extra-nice with his patients the whole day, chatting with them, joking around, really taking his time to listen to them.  
  
It had only been a matter of time, though, that his body would simply give up and decide to go to sleep, if it´s owner wanted it or not. Fortunately, it had waited till Jesse was sitting on the sofa in the Lounge, talking - or rather listening to - Amanda.  
  
"Didn´t sleep too good," he said now, as he noticed his friends´ questioning glances on him. "But I´d better hurry now," he added quickly. "See you." With that he left the room.  
  
"Gee," Steve announced and sat down, "what´s with him?"  
  
Amanda and Mark exchanged a quick glance, both thinking the same, and shrugged without answering.   
  
"You know how he is," the pathologist said. "Always overworked," she added, but meant something else.  
  
Steve nodded, not letting on that he´d understood, anyway.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
It was a quiet afternoon at "Bob´s", few people came in for a drink or meal. It would get a little more crowded in the evening hours, as Jesse knew, but right now he was completely contend with the situation. Sitting behind the bar, he attempted to read a newspaper, but found it hard to actually concentrate on it. He was still tired, the short nap in the Lounge only seemed to have increased his tiredness, and could feel the first signs of a headache, too.   
  
The door was opened, and Jesse lifted his head to smile at the customer, but it faded once he saw the angry expression on Detective Grady Leer´s face. Shrinking on his chair a little, the doctor forced the smile back on his lips again and even queeked out a soft "hey", when the man sat down at the bar.  
  
Leer didn´t bother with greetings. "I could just fire you," he said hard.  
  
Jesse was tempted to shoot back a smart-ass reply, wether that was a promise, for instance, but heard himself say: "I´m sorry."   
  
"Sorry! D´you have any idea what could have happened?! I know, we two have different opinions on that, but you´re no cop, Jesse! Am I understood? You ever pull a stunt like that, you´re out. Going in there like that, without back-up or anything," he added after a deep, calming breath. "What did you think you were doing, anyway?!"  
  
"Ahm ... I ..." Jesse started to explain his motives in a small voice, but frowned suddenly. "Hey, wait a minu... How d´you know about ..."  
  
"Jesse, please! If I´m gonna say this "that´my job"-line one more time, I´ll go nuts. I know it when someone sneezes in this practice. What d´you think I´m doing all day long, folding files?!"  
  
"Ahm ..."  
  
"Okay," Leer said in a tone that made it clear he would turn to business now, "tell me about your day."  
  
That request brought back the thought Jesse had clung to over the whole day and that wiped away all his rue in an instant now. "I´d to take drugs," he informed the detective angryly, "due to your stupid profile!"  
  
"So he does pay you in ... great," Leer announced, hitting the bar-top with his fist. Jesse felt his chin falling down and caught it to grimace slightly. The man obviously failed to get the point.  
  
"Did you keep it?" Leer asked. "Whatever he gave you? For the files."  
  
"I tried to keep it - for the files," Jesse added dryly, "but my stomach decided to object to that."  
  
"You swallowed it?" Leer asked, a mixture of awe and doubt on his face, as if he actually believed the young man to take advantage of his assignment.  
  
"I didn´t inted to! He wouldn´t have take me otherwise."  
  
"Oh. Well. Why didn´t you throw it up afterwards?"  
  
Jesse stared at the man in disbelief. "I tried, but ... y´know, forget it," he finally winked. Yelling at the detective wasn´t very satisfying, when he couldn´t actually yell.  
  
"You´re the doctor," Leer said casually, before getting back to his business-tone. "So, what happened at the practice?"  
  
Jesse told about the patient, his dues and the practice´s looks.  
  
"Hm-hm," Leer nodded, when the report was over. "Did you have the chance to talk to anyone except this Bill guy?"  
  
Jesse shook his head no.  
  
"Well, I guess evetually you´ll meet Donahue. He runs the place," he explained, when Jesse frowned questioningly. "And I´d bet you´re gonna be paid by Liotta. Hm. Okay." A short pause occured, in which Leer rubbed his chin, left in thoughts, before he finally lifted his head again, smiling. "So - I think I take a cup of coffee now."  
  
"Huh?" Jesse made surprisedly. He´d expected at least some orders. Some instructions on what to observe, what to find out ... Anything.  
  
"Coffee," Leer repeated friendly. "You know that, don´t you?"  
  
"Y-yeah ... ahm ... Don´t you want to give me, like, some instructions?" he asked. "Y´know like in the movies. Find that file or so."  
  
"No."  
  
"Ahm ... but ..."  
  
"Jesse, I don´t do heart transplantations," Leer cut him off, "and I´d be glad if you don´t try to do my job, either. `kay? You just keep on going there, leave the thinking to me."  
  
"`kay," Jesse said in a small voice, and stood to get the coffee. Stopping in mid-step, he turned. "That was an insult, right?"  
  
"Just get that coffee."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Days passed, forming themselves to a big, opaque blur for Jesse. He would work at the hospital or "Bob´s", get a call from the practice, treat a patient there and return to another shift. He couldn´t say when he´d last been home after a while, and soon he didn´t care anymore. Leer would come to check on him from time to time, but either he didn´t notice the young man´s fatigued state or he didn´t care about it. He always left satisfied with what he´ve heard, though Jesse never had anthing different from his first day at the practice to tell.   
  
His first shock about the way people were treated at the practice had vanished, or rather he´d become to tired to feel it anymore, and now he was checking on them with he same enthusiasm he´d seen with Bill.   
  
When frustration dawned, he remembered why he had accepted the assignment - to get the man who´d brought his friend so much pain. To help Steve.   
  
Deep inside him he knew, of course, that it was a lie, for he didn´t even see Steve. He didn´t see how the lieutenant was doing, how he was coping with things after some time had passed. Yet, the real motive didn´t reveal itself to him, if he was too tired to see it or refused to, he couldn´t tell. Fact was that he couldn´t change the way things were heading at, even if he´d wanted to. He´d stopped complaining about the efforts Leer´s request costed him long ago, at least he hadn´t been forced to take more drugs. Though he definitely could have used it, he sometimes thought dryly.   
  
He had met Dr. Donahue, the practice owner, on his third call.   
  
"You´re the new kid?" the older man had asked unimpressedly, when entering the practice in the morning. Jesse had been there all night, watching over a patient who´d given a lung and was running a very high fever due to the operation. It didn´t look good for him.  
  
"Yeah, I´m Jesse Tr... Jesse," he said, remembering how everybody else avoided to say their last names, and accepted the outstretched hand of the doctor.  
  
"I heard about you," Donahue said. He was an old-looking man of medium hight with grey hair and drawn, somewhat British-looking, features. Wrinkles surrounded his friendly brown eyes; he was the absolute cliché of an "old doctor friend". Jesse felt reminded of old mob movies when looking at him, yet, he somehow liked the man. He liked the way Donahue crossed the recovery room to check on their patient and frowned. As if he was a real doctor and the man on the stretcher a real patient.  
  
"He´s been like that all night?" he finally asked in a low voice.  
  
Jesse nodded and sighed tiredly. "Yeah. I managed to get it down a few hours ago, but ..." He shook his head.   
  
"Hm," Donahue made and said after a thought: "Okay. You can go now. I´ll take care of him."  
  
Jesse hadn´t told Leer that part of the story, though he didn´t know why. Perhaps it was the sound of this "I´ll take care of him" that made him feel like he didn´t want to be informed about what exactly had happened to the man.  
  
He found out, anyway, for the man was rolled into his ER half a day later. A passer-by had found him lying in an alley.   
  
Jesse was only glad Mark hadn´t been there, when he´d treated the man. He probably would have noticed something was wrong. But as things were, Jesse managed to safe the man´s life and ordered to get him to ICU. He didn´t dare thinking about what would have been if he´d failed on this one. What he had he gotten himself into?! What was going on?   
  
Before the questions in his head and the guilt he felt overwhelmed him, he´d fled to the Lounge, had sat down on the sofa and instantly fallen asleep.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Steve felt better. A little at least. His father´s observations, though unknown to him, had turned out right. He was grieving over Carlie´s death, but in a way seldomly done by him, which proved easier than his usual anger. He allowed himself to feel how much he missed her, to take things slowly, and found that, though it didn´t hurt less, it was clear. Not the blinding hot anger he´d felt at every loss before, which always had resuled in desperation beyond understanding, but clear, defined sorrow that hurt, but didn´t kill. He found that he could even think of Carlie without the thought of her death covering everything like a big, heavy blanket, but with general greatfullness and joy.   
  
He´d quickly recovered on the outside, anyway, had begun to joke and wise-crack to his colleagues and his dad again, though he somewhat felt a lack of something else. Mark had eventually stopped to treat his son with special carefulness, for he sensed Steve´s desire for things going back to normal, and had started their usual drabbles and arguments. But it wasn´t enough, Steve found, and he wondered what it was he missed when sitting at the bar in "Bob´s" or at the Lounge at the hospital. He would say something and wait for a reply no one would give, and soon it started to frustrate him.  
  
It wasn´t till he entered the Lounge one day to find Jesse sleeping on the sofa once more, curled into a ball as always, as if even in sleep he didn´t want to use up more space than he needed, that the answer to his question appeared to be obvious. Yet not quite accepted, for the lieutenant remained where he stood, a deep frown forming on his forehead. Could it be - and he would have denied it if one had ever suggested it - that he felt a lack of Jesse?   
  
He tried to remember the last time he´d had an actual conversation with his young friend, but couldn´t. It seemed that Jesse had been always on the run ever since Carlie had died, and coming to think about it, Steve couldn´t even remember when he´d last seen his friend.  
  
Every time he started a shift at "Bob´s", Jesse was already gone, and when he came to the hospital, the doctor either worked or wasn´t there. Leaning against the door frame now, Steve frowned. How did that come? Jesse didn´t have more work suddenly than before, did he? Was he avoiding Steve? But for what reason?  
  
"I thought you didn´t have a heart," a soft voice made Steve jump suddenly.  
  
Grabbing his heart, he whirled around to face the intrudor. "Amanda! Don´t do that to me!"  
  
"Sorry," she grinned. "Couldn´t resist. What´re you doing here?"  
  
"Waiting for dad," Steve answered. "Ahm," he added, looking over at the small sleeping form on the sofa, "how long has he been out?"  
  
"Don´t know," she shrugged. "Unlike him, I´m actually working."  
  
"Uh-huh. He looks kinda tired, don´t you think?"  
  
"He´s sleeping, Steve. Most people look tired when they´re sleeping. - Is there any particular reason for your sudden interest in Jesse´s sleeping habits?"  
  
"No," Steve replied unnervedly, but couldn´t help his expression to soften immediately. "It´s just ... Have you seen him lately? Like in more than "hello"?"  
  
"It´s been a few rough days down here," she said gently. "You know how things can get." Casting him an assuring glance, she smiled understandingly.  
  
"Yeah, course," Steve mumbled and wanted to add some more, when a sharp noise interrupted him.  
  
Looking into the room again, he and Amanda saw Jesse first stir, then, though still half-asleep, try to grab the little device which produced the unnerving noise, and lastly fall off the sofa when attempting to stand up.  
  
"This sucks!" he announced, now fully awake and staggering to his feet. "I hate this sofa! It´s evil!"   
  
While his friends couldn´t help laughing out loud by now, he feebly grabbed the device to check the number. Running a hand through his towsled hair, he told it: "and you suck to."   
  
With that, he put it back in place and headed for the door, where he looked at his still giggling friends for the first time. Performing a shaky little bow, he announced: "Glad you enjoyed our little show. Come back tomorrow night!" and hurried down the hallway to the lift.  
  
"Jess, hey, when does your shi..." Steve started to yell after him, but the doors of the lift closed, before he could finish his question.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
As soon as Jesse entered recovery at the practice, he was greeted by an agitated young man with wild brown hair and greenish eyes. He was taller than Jesse and obviously younger. Panic radiated from him in waves through the room he paced in a high speed.  
  
High he himself was, too, as his older colleague noticed easily. His eyes were about as bright as they could have gotten without exploding, and he was white as chalk.  
  
"Hey," he cried out in relief when he saw the other man standing in the doorway. "Hey, you´re Jesse?"  
  
"Yeahp," Jesse answered slowly, scanning the room confusedly. A woman was lying on the stretcher, her color matched the one of her doctor. "What ..." he started to ask, but was interrupted by the babbling boy, who had tears whelming up in his eyes now.  
  
"I-I didn´t mean to, I think I ... She wouldn´t come `round, and I-I thought ..."  
  
Alarmed at the words, Jesse rushed over to the woman´s side and checked her pupils and breathing. "What did you give her?" he then asked seriously.  
  
"I-I didn´t mean to, man, I was just ..."  
  
"What d´you give her?!" Jesse repeated harshly, casting his best superior-look on the kid.   
  
"I-I don´t ... I don´t think I ..."  
  
"Oh great," Jesse muttered and turned back to their patient. "She stopped breathing." Instantly he started CPR and glanced over his shoulder after a few seconds. "You wanna help me or what?!"  
  
Together they managed to get her to breathe again, but it was still very shallow. Frowning, as he thought about what to do next, Jesse noticed a small bottle lying on the ground next to the bed. He picked it up and read the label.   
  
"Oh my ... Did you give her that?" he asked, holding the bottle out for the kid to read, but he just raised his arms feebly, chocking on the answer: "I-I don´t know! It coughta been anything, I ..."  
  
Fighting the urge to grab this boy and just throw him out of the room, Jesse drew in a deep, calming breath and said: "Okay. We need to intubate her. I´m gonna need your help here. You think you can do it?"  
  
"Huh?" The answer came in a mixture of fear and confusion.  
  
"You think you ..."  
  
"Yeah, yeah, sure, man, I´m ... Yeah, okay."   
  
Placing another checking look at his colleague, Jesse nodded and started the procedure. "Oookay," he announced, once the difficult part was over. "Now we gonna need to check on her vitals. If her breathing doesn´t improve over the next hours, I´m fresh out."  
  
"Hm-hm," the other man nodded. He´d obviously passed the state of panic and was now realising what he´d done.  
  
Jesse eyed him worriedly. "Hey," he finally announced him, "what´s your name?"  
  
"Edward," he answered, even smiled slightly. "I-I´m really sorry I called you, but I didn´t know what ... Your number was the first I found in the book," he finished lamely.  
  
"Don´t worry, it´s okay," Jesse smiled, though okay was the very last it was. Edward had - plain and simply speaking - almost killed the patient out of the need to get her out of recovery before the next patient would turn up. "At least you called me and ..." he drew in another deep breath, trying to force down the urge to talk some sense into the young man, "it looks as though she´s gonna be okay. Next time, though, just ... don´t use anything you don´t know," he said firmly. "Understood?"  
  
"Yeah, sure," Edward mumbled and bowed his head.   
  
Silence settled over the scenery, eventually Jesse told Edward to leave.  
  
"Y-you sure, I mean, it´s my shift and ..."  
  
"No, `sokay, just go home and ... do some research," he finished with a dry smile. "Intern?" he then asked and received an embarrassed nod.  
  
He briefly pressed his thumb and index finger on his eyes. They let interns watch over patients like this here. High interns for crying out loud!  
  
"I just ... go then," Edward stuttered when Jesse didn´t say anything more. "Thanks again, you ... Thanks."  
  
Jesse simply nodded.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
For the second time in two seconds, Steve checked his watch. The result didn´t please him. It hadn´t pleased him ten minutes ago, too, when he´d picked up the habit of looking at his watch every second. It started to drive everybody in the room nuts by now.  
  
"Sloan, I know this question might come as a shocker to you, but are you waiting for someone?" Grady Leer asked dryly, while he put his cup back onto the bar. He´d shown up at "Bob´s" some time ago to fill Steve in on the Vitense-case, and they´d lost track of time over their talking a little, so that Steve had noticed his shift was coming to an end when it had been over already for ten minutes. Yet, no one came to take over.  
  
"Yeah, Jesse," Steve answered. "He was supposed to take over tonight. I have a meeting in half an hour."  
  
"A meeting?" Leer repeated amusedly. "Since when do cops have meetings? Don´t tell me you have a suit, too."  
  
"Course not," Steve winked in mock indignation, and added: "But managers do, and I´ve to question one about his alibi in half an hour, that is if my business-partner allows me to do it!"   
  
"I´m sure he´ll be here in a minute," Leer assured. "Traffic´s murder out there."  
  
"There´ll be murder in here, too, if I miss my appointment cause of him." Steve checked his watch. Though he knew it wasn´t because of the meeting he´d miss, that he was so angry at his friend, he didn´t want to think about the real reason. Therefore he just continued to get furious because of the appointment, and when at last the door was opened to reveal the tired-looking form of Jesse Travis, he practically yelled at him.  
  
"Where´ve you been?!"  
  
"I´m sorry, Steve, honest, I ... something came up."  
  
"Something came ...?!" Steve started, but stopped, as he noticed the tired look in Jesse´s eyes, his drawn features. He´d seen the expression on him before.Immediately, his anger vanished in the air. "Okay, then, I´ve gotta go." Grabbing his jacket, he came around the bar, nodding Leer goodbye. When he passed Jesse, he stopped briefly, trying nevously to catch his friend´s look, without success, though.  
  
"Hey, ahm, you okay?" Oh great! he thought. Who could resist to pour out his heart at a question that sensitive!   
  
Forcing an unconvincing smile on his face, Jesse nodded and looked exactly like one should look after a question like that, Steve mused.   
  
"Yeah, sure, fine. Hey, Im really sorry," he added once more, bowing his head, as if he was ashamed of what Steve might see in his eyes.  
  
"`kay," Steve finally nodded. "I ... `kay. See you." With that he left, feeling a slight knot building in his throat. Damned doctors! Must be all this coffee, he thought sarcastically as the the door fell closed behind him.  
  
Inside the place, Jesse dragged himself behind the bar and hold out a hand in defence, before Grady Leer had even opened his mouth.  
  
"Don´t. Ask."  
  
Surprised, Leer shrugged and remained silent.  
  
It only took seconds, though, before Jesse closed his eyes, saying: "I lost a patient today."  
  
Leer´s gaze snapped up from where he had studied his coffee. "At the practice?"  
  
Jesse nodded sadly.  
  
"Who?"  
  
"A woman. I don´t know her name. Thirty, maybe older. Gave a kidney. But ... it was an accident," he finished, looking directly at the detective. "It really was."  
  
"Why don´t you let me be the judge of that, huh? I studied the difference between accidents and ..."  
  
"It was an accident," Jesse interrupted him firmly. "I studied the difference, too, y´know."  
  
Casting the young man a long look, Leer finally decided to let it be and raised his cup. "Can you find out her name?"  
  
"Dunno. I can try."  
  
"Try then. And Jesse," the doctor lifted his gaze, "don´t hide things from me, you hear me?"  
  
"I´m no..."  
  
"Just don´t," Leer cut him off and stood to leave the bar.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
It had happened again. He couldn´t believe it. Trying to not step on the gas any harder, Jesse hold onto the wheel till his knuckles got white. His mind was racing in union with his heart.   
  
It had happened again. Or rather - he had done it again. Wiping the sweat off his face, he recalled his second meeting with Edward a few minutes ago. He´d been running a test on a liver, chatting with Dr. Donahue, who had a real patient waiting behind the door.  
  
"Let them wait and they´ll respect you," the older man had explained his behavior to him. "It´s the secret of my success."  
  
Jesse swallowed the reply that robbing people´s organs and working for satan himself might also be considered the secret of his success, and just smiled friendly.  
  
"That," Donahue continued with a knowing, warm smile, "and a good night´s sleep." Bending over to the pale young man, he raised his index finger to point at him. "You look like you could use some of that, too, kid."  
  
Jesse forced himself to return the smile and shrugged almost apologetically. "I´ve to work when I´m done here."  
  
"Well then, I´d suggest you better take something," Donahue replied. "You sure look like it. Wait a second ..." With that the older man had started to rummage in one of his table´s shelves, muttering to himself, where he´d put that stuff this time.  
  
Knowing instantly, what the other man meant, Jesse could feel the hairs on his neck rising in dreadfull fear. He was about to stutter something, but caught himself at the attempt early enough to prevent himself from it. His gaze started darting from Donahue to the door and back, and his heart beat speeded up as if he´d already taken whatever it was the doctor was looking for in the insides of his desk.  
  
Suddenly, the door opened, making Jesse jump. Whirling around, he met the startlet gaze of Edward the Intern, whose chin dropped due to his shock and was lifted then in order to swallowe nervously.  
  
In the same second, Donahue lifted his upper body with a cheeringly announced "Got it!" and turned to greet Edward, too. "Hey Eddie, haven´t seen you in a while."  
  
"H-hey doctor," Edward said warily and failed to smile. His gaze was still focused on Jesse, who suppressed a sigh without much success, trying to figure out how he could get out of this mess clean (literally). His shift at CG started in about twenty minutes. He couldn´t possibly show up there when he was ...  
  
"Gee, what is it with you young fellows avoiding sleep these days?" Donahue said good-humoredly, now that he got a good look at Edward, too. "I tell you, the system´s breaking all of you nice, promising young doctors, and then what? But who am I to do anything `bout it, huh?" he added helplessly and handed each one of his colleagues a pill out of a small bag. "Here. Just to avoid having one of you faint in my practice," he joked. "Can´t afford to scare away my patients."  
  
As he turned towards his desk again, Edward´s gaze briefly darted to him and back to Jess, who slightly shook his head to tell the younger man that he hadn´t told anyone about the incident.  
  
The greatest smile of relief and greatfullness that ever was layed upon anyone appeared on Edward´s lips, and he raised his pill like it was a glass of champagne to Jess, then swallowed it.  
  
Reluctantly, Jesse followed his example.  
  
That was how he had ended up in the car, once again driving like a maniac to make it in time, knowing instinctly that he wouldn´t.  
  
"Stupid," he muttered and hit the wheel with his palm. "You´re such an idiot, Travis!"  
  
As he tried to break even more traffic rules than he already had, he could feel sweat drying on his forehead and chest, making him shiver. He wondered wether it was a real effect or just his fear getting the better part of him. Either way, he didn´t like it.  
  
Squeezing brakes echoed through the parking lot, when he finally came to the long desired halt at CG, and rather stumbling than getting out of the car, Jesse sprinted over to the next lift, trying to think of disgusting things in order to speed things up a little. On the first floor he burst out of the lift and right into the men´s room.   
  
But it showed that he obviously had been right about him not being the right type for drugs. Leaning against the closed door of a cubicle, he slid down to the ground, trying to catch his breath, but found he couldn´t. And also he couldn´t force himself to throw up. A little dizzy he felt, though not in an uncomfortable way, and leaning back his head against the door, he closed his eyes, wondering what it was this time that was now messing with his system.  
  
Eventually, his breathing speed decreased, he just continued to sit there, shivering slightly, but that, too, in a comfortable, welcome way. As if he was walking through a cool breeze on a hot summer day.   
  
Cracking his eyes open a little he looked around and had to grin about the humiliating surroundings. He must look the ultimate picture of a junky, he thought sarcastically, huddled next to a toilet, drifting off to imaginary places ...  
  
Funny, though, it didn´t actually bother him. Nothing really bothered him. Calm he felt. Calm and content. Slowly, he came to his feet, drew in a deep breath, that just felt great, as if he´d never breathed before, and left the cubicle to - bump into Steve Sloan.  
  
"Hey!" Jesse greeted his friend with a bright smile, stumbling backwards a few steps, till Steve grabbed his arm to hold him. "S-sorry," he added.  
  
"Hey Jess. - You okay?" the lieutenant asked with concern building rapidly in his eyes as he took in his friend´s strikingly bright eyes and paleness.   
  
"I´d be better if you could let me go now," Jesse wise-cracked.  
  
"Oh." Noticing that he still had his fingers wrapped around Jesse´s arm, Steve let him go. He stepped back a little to give the smaller man some space. "I have a patient for y... You sure you´re okay?" he asked, frowning.  
  
"Yes, I´m fine, apart from being annoyed with annoying questions. So where´s this patient of yours and since when do you supply me with patients, anyway?" Jesse asked, while he washed his hands and secretly checked his appearance in the mirror. Okay, he was white as a snow rabbit, but then Steve had seen him now, anyway, so he could as well just go out there and treat some patients. No big deal.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Steve Sloan rubbed a tired hand over his exhausted features, and wondered when exactly he´d begun to hate kids.  
  
Glancing over to a not the least unnerved, but highly amused, busy Dr. Jesse Travis, he frowned once more. There were enough reasons in the room for even Jesse´s ever lasting smile to fade, which were all three male, about sixteen years old and extremely annoying. Yet, the young doctor actually seemed to enjoy their company or rather, he didn´t mind it, which was proof enough for Steve that something was seriously wrong with his friend.  
  
The boys, though, were completely unaware of that and continued unmercyfully to fill both adults in on a great adventure they´d just experienced. Or from their points of view, they were giving information for a police protocol. The fact that Steve didn´t take notes didn´t seem to bother them much.  
  
"So naturally we followed him," one of them was just saying. He was a little smaller than his two friends and definitely in need of a diet. He´d done the most talking, and Steve had given up hope of him stopping some time in the near future a long time ago.  
  
"Naturally," one of his friends sneered. "Course! I didn´t plan on celebrating my 17th birthday, anyway."  
  
"What are you moaning about, we got out of it, right?"   
  
"Yeah, and were are we now, in a hospital!"  
  
"Just because you two never listen to what I ..."  
  
"Kids," Jesse tried to cool down what looked like the beginning of an argument. "I´ve to concentrate here, `kay. So that I won´t stitch anything mean on your pal´s forehead."  
  
The pal was the third boy of the team, who was lying on the stretcher in the room and hadn´t said a word since their arrival - a fact Steve considered reason enough to adopt the kid. He had an angry looking gash on the right side of his forehead, which Jesse was stitching by now.  
  
"Who would know the difference?" the taller boy shot back. His striken friend attempted to lift his head at that, but stopped after a split second, moaning softly.   
  
"Hey, no messing with my patient," Jesse reprimanded the kid jokingly. "If you´ll get him all agitated and moving around, I´ll may be forced to sedate you two."  
  
Steve was just about to comment on that idea, when the door was opened, and a fun expecting Mark Sloan entered the room with a small grin. After having spotted his son in the exam room, the older man had soon noticed the unmistakable signs of Steve being pissed and, deciding he could use some entertainment, he´d made his way over to the room and was now smiling at the little group with bright eyes.  
  
"Hi," he said light-heartedly and grinned. "What´s up?"  
  
"Hey Mark," Jesse nodded, equally grinning. "Nothing in particular. Just checking on Steve´s little colleagues."  
  
As Steve let out a low moan of frustration, he turned to smile innocently. Mark frowned slightly, but was quickly given an explanation for Steve´s reaction to Jesse´s revelation, when the lead-talker of the small team started stating:  
  
"Yeah, right. You wouldn´t believe wha..."  
  
"Dad, please meet the reason I´m going to be cranky when I get home," Steve interupted him dryly and added: "These are the kis who found David Downey."  
  
Mark´s brows raised in surprise. "The David Downey?" he asked. "The bank robber who broke out of jail two days ago?"  
  
"Exactly," one of the kids, the diet-needing fellow, nodded. "By combining and searching our archive, we found out where he might be hiding, found him and manged to overpower him." Casting a glance at Steve, he added: "He only had to collect the guy."  
  
"Wow," Mark said. "Congratulations to you. I take it you´re like hobby-privates or ..."  
  
"Hobby-privates?!" the boy interupted him as if he´d been seriously insulted.   
  
"Don´t say the H-word, Mark, "Jesse warned in mock seriousness. "They´re in real business. Marlowe kids. Show him your card."  
  
Having obviously just waited to get the ceremony done, the boy handed Mark a card, which the older doctor accepted with curiousity. As he began to read it, he was interrupted by Steve´s and Jesse´s knowing voices, ordering in union:  
  
"You´ve to read it out loud."  
  
"Ah ... Okay," he said confused and read: " The three detectives. ??? We take on every case. First Detective: Justus Jonas ..."  
  
"That´s me," the small boy in need of a diet announced proudly.  
  
"Uh-huh ... Second Detective: Peter Shaw ..."  
  
"Me," the named kid said. He was somewhat taller than his two friends and extremely fit-looking. He probably could have taken on Steve for a sprint. But though his physical strength might have given him the expected air of leadership, it just stood in opposite to his very soft features. He seemed to be younger than the others and very nervous. Clenching and unclenching his hands, he presented Mark with a sort of dull smile, to which the doctor answered with an uncertain, shaky one.  
  
"Okay. Investigation and archive: Bob Andrews."  
  
Awaiting the third polite introduction, Mark was surprised when he heard Jesse saying: "That would be this young man here, who isn´t allowed to talk at the moment, so that I may finish my honorable task of stitching that wound of his."  
  
He pointed to the bed in the room, where Bob Andrews lay and smiled warily at the doctor.   
  
"He stumpled over his own feet," Peter Shaw informed Mark helpfully.  
  
"I see," the older doctor nodded in sympathy.  
  
"I didn´t stumble over anything," Bob´s voice suddenly announced, "but ..."  
  
"Guys," Jesse cut off the beginning fight unpatiently, "no more fighting in my hospital, alright? You two leave him alone or I´ll have all of you on valium within a second, `kay? With you catching someone and being held at gun-point and stuff you´re pretty likely to be in shock, anyway!"  
  
"It wasn´t the first time we were held at gun-point," Justus pointed out casually.  
  
Chuckling surprisedly, Mark said: "I didn´t catch your age ..."  
  
"Uh ..." a faint voice queeked, before anyone could answer to, "I think I ..."  
  
"Ah, doctor ..." Justus Jonas´ warning wouldn´t have been necessary, for Jesse had already noticed the change in Bob Andrews´ color of face. Grabbing a kidney bowl to hand it to the greenish boy, he turned to the actually quite amused looking ones.   
  
"Probably only a mild concussion, but I´m gonna run a few more tests, just to be sure. Won´t take long. Steve, take your colleagues some place else, okay? I have a patient."  
  
"But ..."  
  
"Mark!"  
  
"C´mon, son, we´ll take the privates to the Lounge. You want something to drink? - Sure you don´t need help here, Jess?" he added when the other three had already left the room, led by a grumbling lieutenant.  
  
"What, with a puking kid?" Jesse asked indignantly.  
  
"Hey! I´m not ... yet, uh ..."  
  
Chuckling at his colleague´s "Yeah, sure"-gaze he´d come to use with teenage patients, Mark closed the door to follow Steve and the boys.  
  
"So, does anyone care to fill me in now?" he asked when entering the Lounge. "For I feel a little confused here. You found out about Downey´s hiding place."  
  
"Right," Justus Jonas nodded enthusiasticly and would have continued the story, if it hadn´t been for Steve taking in a deep, calming breath and bursting out: "Right! So instead of calling us police guys - which woulda been a real coward thing to do, huh - the three stugees decided to follow an armed man to his house, break into his house and ..."  
  
"We didn´t break in," Peter Shaw objected, "the door was open! And it was his idea," he added, pointing at his friend. "As always."  
  
"Well, yeah, he could have hidden something, you know."  
  
"Like what, a gun?" Peter snapped.  
  
"I wasn´t planning on meeting him inside. He must have ... known that we were coming," Justus defended himself.  
  
"No kidding!" Steve cut off Peter Shaw´s reply. "Which leads us to which assumption, Sherlock, huh?"  
  
"That he ... was waiting for us?" Justus tried, smiling unsurely. With the lieutenant´s tall figure practically towering above him, he didn´t look half as self-assure as before.  
  
"Brilliant. Hope you´re taking notes, dad. What d´you think could have happened?" he snapped at the boys.  
  
"Ah ... We could have gotten ourselves killed?" Peter guessed.  
  
A short pause followed, during which Steve´s eyes grew wide. "And?" he finally all but cried out. "Does that bother you at least a bit?"  
  
"Nothing to worry about," Justus Jonas winked, "we´ve been in situations like that before."  
  
"Don´t tell me," Peter agreed and sneered at his friend. "For Justus, if it doesn´t end up in being held at gun-point it´s no real case."  
  
"I wouldn´t put it like that, but ..."  
  
"Dad," Steve sighed helplessly, "they´re all yours, take them to psych ward or whatever, I´m gonna talk to the third Marx down the hall once more, and then I´m outta here."   
  
"Bye, detective," the boys called after him, but were answered with an sarcastic: "No, you´re the detectives, I´m lieutenant." before the door fell closed.  
  
  
  
  
  
Trying to figure out what he was supposed to write in his report - for the case that three kids would solve a crime sooner than a cop wasn´t in the handbook - Steve turned around a corner and stopped in med-step, when he saw Jesse´s small figure leaning against a wall, his eyes squeezed closed.   
  
Approaching him, the lieutenant could also make out a slight shade of sweat on his friend´s forehead, his color of face hadn´t improved, too.  
  
"Jess?" he finally asked and was surprised, when the doctor flinched violently. Out of relfex, he hold out his palm as if to show he wasn´t armed. "Easy."  
  
"H-hey," Jesse gasped, laughing nervously. "Wow - you sure gave me a heart attack here. Phew!" Still trying to catch his breath, he wiped a hand over his face.  
  
Steve frowned in concern. "You look awful."  
  
"Ah ... damn, I don´t have anything nice to say to you," the younger man joked, though the shaking in his voice betrayed his humor. "Listen, you want me to give the kids a ride home? I´m done here and ..."  
  
"You´re shift just started," Steve interrupted him firmly. The familiar knot of worry and doubt was beginning to move in his throat, and he definitely didn´t like the feeling. "Jess, you´re not ..."  
  
"I changed shifts," Jesse lied, "I gotta be ... somewhere else in ... ah, soon, so I could just drive home the kids and then go there. You want me to or not?"  
  
Feeling slightly taken aback by Jesse´s almost aggressive tone, the lieutenant said: "I don´t want you to drive no matter where. You look sick. And you´re behaving stra..."  
  
"Fine," Jesse cut him off, raising his hands in a feeble motion, too fast to look natural, "then you drive them. The kid´s allowed to leave when you´re ready. See ya."  
  
With that he turned, swaying slightly and headed for the lift.  
  
"Jess!" Following his friend, Steve grabbed the smaller man´s arm. "Hey, look at me!"  
  
"Let me go!" Jesse snapped, and pulled free. Losing his balance in the process, he fell onto his back.   
  
Steve watched in disbelief. He couldn´t remember his friend ever having acted so irrational. When he reached out to help him to his feet, Jesse ignored his hand, and crawled to standing position on his own. Without a word or look at Steve, he turned and sprinted off for the lift.  
  
"Jesse!" Steve yelled confusedly. Staring at the closing lift-doors, he ran a hand through his hair and let out a loud swear. "What´s going on here?!" he muttered on his way back to the Lounge.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
It was some time later when he again entered the Doctor´s Lounge to find Mark and Amanda sitting there, chatting. He´d just came back from the goddamned little dump where he´d driven the three nerds to, and the fact that he´d been brooding over Jesse´s stange behavior all the way back hadn´t improved his damaged mood the least.  
  
"Son," his father greeted him with a bright grin once he´d spotted him at the door. "Saw your colleagues home alright?"  
  
"Yeahp, sent them over a cliff," he replied casually, and sat down. "Say, have either of you noticed something ... strange about Jesse lately?"  
  
"Stranger than the usual?" Amanda asked and frowned in mock ernesty.  
  
"I´m serious here."  
  
"Why?" his father demanded, a little concerned now. "What happened?"  
  
"Nothing in particular. I just got the feeling he ... Have you seen him much these last week?"  
  
"Y´know, we had a lot of patients and emergencies down here," Mark started, but was interrupted by Steve immediately shaking his head. "No, I mean, have you really seen him? Like at "Bob´s" or stuff? For I sure haven´t. And you´ve had rough days before without Jesse being completley out of sight. I mean, we both have two full-time jobs, but normally I still can remember the sound of his voice at the end of a week."  
  
"Aww,"Amanda made and cast Mark a joking look, while she reached out to pat Steve´s head, "isn´t it cute, he misses his friend. Steve," she added in a normal tone, ignoring the look to kill he shot her, "doctors´ work under a lot of pressure, you might have come across this once or twice in your life already. Im sure Jesse´s just a little overworked at the moment. And," she continued, changing to a very soft tone now, "maybe he just doesn´t know how to react right now. After all he was the one who had to tell you that ..."  
  
"It´s not that," Steve cut her off firmly, for of course this thought had crossed his mind, too, and though he was pretty sure it really wasn´t the case, he didn´t even like thinking about it. "It´s, dunno ... I think he´s hiding something from us. You know, after he´d treated the kids, I met him on the hallway, and he acted really strange. Like ... He practically ran away from me."  
  
Alarmed now, for when Steve thought it serious it most probably was, Mark frowned. "Why would he do that?"  
  
Steve opened his mouth, closed it, then bowed his head, looking away.  
  
"Steve?" Amanda asked, worrid herself now. The lieutenant seldomly showed his own concerns that open. That he did alone scared her pretty good.  
  
"I think he ..." Sighing deeply, Steve looked up again. "He looked kinda ... high."  
  
Silence broke lose like a thunderstorm.  
  
"High?" Mark finally repeated unbelievingly. "As in ... drug-high?"  
  
"I don´t think there is another high, dad."  
  
"You think he´s on drugs?" Amanda asked, her tone matching Mark´s.  
  
"I´m not saying he´s taki..." Listening to the echo of his words, Steve hushed himself down, and nodded. "Actually I am saying that, yeah."  
  
"You sure?"   
  
"Dad, I´m a cop. I know a high person when I see one."  
  
"But this is Jesse," Amanda pointed out. "It´s his look most of the time. One could easily think ..."  
  
"Amanda."  
  
"`kay, so maybe you know the difference between Jess-high and real high, but still ... We´ve gotta be carefull on that, Steve, you know that, right?" she asked urgingly and at his questioning look burst out: "Well, the last time we thought we was taking drugs, he actually had been abducted and brutalized, not to mention poisoned."  
  
"He was on drugs nevertheless," Steve replied. "And as far as I know he hasn´t been abducted lately."  
  
"Jesse would never turn to drugs voluntarily," Mark said to no one in particular. He seemed to be lost in thoughts. "Something´s going on he doesn´t want us to know about."  
  
"Did I just say that or what?" Steve mumbled and asked: "So what´re we gonna do, ask him? Personally I would vote for locking him up in one of them rooms with no windows you have here and let him stay there till he tells us."  
  
"I agree to that," Amanda said humorlessly.  
  
"I´m gonna talk to him," Mark decided, casting the other two a hard look. "I´m his superior."  
  
With that, he stood and left the room.  
  
Confused looks were exchanged back in the Lounge. "Since when?" Steve finally asked.  
  
Amanda just shrugged.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Wandering down the hallway of CG, Mark Sloan cursed himself. For not having asked further the night Jesse had turned up at the hospital after his shift had already been over. He´d seen the signs, too, Mark realized now, of course he had, but he´d been too worried about Steve to care.  
  
And damn, had that been wrong?! How was he supposed to have an eye on everybody around him? As if it wasn´t difficult enough to have one so...  
  
Stopping in mid-step, he pressed a hand over his eyes. Had he just thought that? Oh boy! Yes, he admitted to himself, yes, he cared deeply about Jesse, and yes, he was feeling guilty now.  
  
"Content?" he growled at his inner voice and conituned his way, when there was a positive, sarcastic answer.  
  
Why the hell hadn´t he said something? Why had he thought Jesse would be fine? He knew the man for Christ´s sake! He could tell when Jesse was fine and when he wasn´t, and yet he hadn´t ... cared, he finished frustratedly, feeling the sudden urge to kick in a door or something. He´d been too tired to care.   
  
He wasn´t tired anymore, but what difference did it make? Even if he could help his young friend now, he´d been too tired once, and he would always remember that.  
  
"Damn!" he muttered under his breath, turned around a corner, entered the very next exam room he could find, closed the door behind him - and kicked it hard.  
  
  
  
  
  
The scenery that greeted Jesse at the practice would have been enough for everybody to just turn around and drive back. But in his over-enthusiastic state of mind, an effect of the drug that had started a few minutes ago, taking the place of the dizzyness and sickness, he was curious as to what was going on there, so he parked his car at his usual spot and crossed the street to the small alley next to the building.  
  
Even from the distance he could make out Raymond Liotta´s tall figure, though he stood in a position Jesse never would have thought him capeable of standing - with his hands risen in fear and defence. In front of him stood three men Jesse never had seen before, all of them equally tall and - more importantly - armed.  
  
Holding their chosen victim at gun-point, they laughed out from time to time, but what they were saying, Jesse couldn´t understand from where he came to an halt. At any other time messing with three armed people wouldn´t have seemed like a good idea to him, but since his mind was clouded with the betraying feeling of being invincable, the young man strolled into the alley, calling out: "Hey! What´s going on here?"  
  
Turning at the sudden voice surprisedly, the three men exchanged amused glances. "We´re having a private party here," one of them finally stated. "And you´re not invented."  
  
In the meantime, Jesse had noticed the painfilled grimace on Liotta´s face and the trail of blood that was flooding down his right shoulder. The man was as white as chalk and would probably break down any second.  
  
"You shot him," Jesse pointed out, sounding as if he didn´t actually know what to make out of the fact.  
  
"Bright boy," the one who´d spoken before said, but before he could advise the smaller man to leave now or be sorry once more, Jesse approached the small group even more, saying: "I´m a doctor. Let me help him."  
  
A quick exchange of glances took place, unnoticed by the young doctor who was by now trying to get a better look at Liotta´s shoulder. Though he still stood on his feet, the man was oblivious to his surroundings, concentrating only on not fainting.  
  
"A doctor, huh?" the man who´d spoken before repeated in a threatening voice, before he roughly grabbed Jesse´s shoulder and whirled him around, so that he was facing him now. "One of his doctors?" he asked, pointing at Liotta.  
  
"Ah ... yeah," Jesse replied after a second´s thought, but realized it had been the wrong answer pretty quickly. "Ahm ... I-I mean ..." He gasped in shock when he was without a warning thrown against the opposite wall. He fell to the ground and remained there, holding his head.  
  
"So, how d´you like your job?" The man asked as one of his partners yanked the dazed doctor back to his feet by the back of his shirt. "Defending your boss like that, I bet you´re pretty well off here, right?" He looked at Jesse, who was shaking his head slightly to clear his vision.  
  
"I´m not ..." the young man tried to say softly, but was quickly silenced by a blow to his stomach, that would have made him double over, if he hadn´t still be hold upright.   
  
"Not what, kid?! Not butchering people in there?!" Another devastating fist connected with his ribs, and Jesse yelped in pain.  
  
"No, you don´t und..." he tried once again, but his attempts only enraged the man even more.   
  
"I don´t understand?" he yelled at his captive. "Yeah, you´re right, I don´t." With that he hit Jesse across the face so hard, he fell down despite the other men´s gribs. For a second or two he lost track of his whereabouts, just lay on the cold concrete and tasted his own blood. His head throbbed fiercely, his vision swam in a dark red.  
  
The question of where he was became pretty minor when all of a sudden a solid boot connected with his already sore ribcage. Groaning, he tried to flee the continuing kicks, tried to curl into a ball, but was prevented from it by another boot that shoved his left arm to his side roughly and then settled on his outstretched hand.  
  
Screaming from the pain it caused, Jesse frantically tried to free his hand, before his fingers would break, but all he managed to do was to increase the heaviness on his hand.   
  
The kicks continued, and after a while the young man found it hard to concentrate on anyhing else but the pain anymore. If it just would stop. He could still taste blood and felt a few wet spots on his shirt, too. How had he gotten himself into his mess? he wondered, and panicked when he found he couldn´t rememer.   
  
He didn´t even notice that they stopped, only when his head was once more yanked off the ground by his hair.   
  
"I´d just love to tear out your organs," the man whose voice had become dreadfully familiar to him by now, whispered.  
  
Cracking his eyes half-open, Jesse met the enraged face of his tormentor and saw the fury in the grey eyes, the hate.  
  
"Pl-please ..." he croaked, but was cut off by a sharp pain in the back of his head that sweapt over him like a fire.  
  
He lost consciousness with his head still hold in the air and didn´t feel how he was released from the man´s grib.   
  
  
  
  
To be continued. 


	4. Leered 4

Hey guys! Hope you all had a great christmas like me and are up for another chapter!  
  
Thanks everyone for the reviews! Don´t worry, the nerds have been sent home for good.  
  
And as to Pinky-Kid - *wnuddel* - no electric shocks in here (What a shame, huh? What are fences there for?! Grin!), but peeking under scrubs just for you. Let´s discuss the technique later ... By the way: New caaaaaaaaaaaapter!!!! "I owe you that" vor!!! Check it out, alla you who haven´t, yet. It´s a must-read  
  
Disclaimers still the same.   
  
Enjoy!  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Noise. There was definitely some noise going on around him, dragging him out of the blessfull darkness. A soft moan it was, he mused, but was interrupted in his lines of thought by his own need to verbalize his state.  
  
"Ow!"  
  
Along with the sudden light, which crawled through his still closed lids into his very skin, where it started to itch and throb, came a dull pain in his head. It felt as though someone had left a brick on his skull, and now it had somehow slipped inside. Lifting a very shaky hand to the back of his head, Jesse found a large bump there and winced as he probed it carefully.   
  
"Ow."  
  
Only now he slowly opened his eyes, but squeezed them shut again instantly. It wasn´t only the uninvited brightness that hurt, but also the - though somewhat blurred, yet unmistakable - sight of his surroundings. Next to an ashccan he lay, his feet were soaked by now after having layed in something wet for so long, and he could feel the cold of the hard concrete crawl into his body, cramping a skinny, freezing hand in his stomach. Carefully he lifted his cheek off the ground, and even managed to move so much as to sit upright, leaning against the wall for support. His breath came out in harsh, short gasps of pain by then, due not only to the increasing pain in his head, but also the stabbing sensation in his ribs and stomach.   
  
Remembering what had happened to those, he slowly let his gaze wander down to his damaged shirt, not really wanting to look underneath it, but knowing he had to. He was pretty sure none of the pains that swept though his whole upper body were caused by a broken, but only by bruised ribs, yet he couldn´t trust his judgement right now.   
  
So after drawing in a few more steadying breaths, he reached out to lift his shirt, grimacing as the whole damage that had been done to the poor textile revealed itself to him. It was torn at more than one place and had a few red strains on it, where his blood had soaked through the material.  
  
What a shame he was alone, he mused. Now of all times he could have made the "Aww, that was my favourite shirt!"-comment. But as no one would have heard it, he didn´t waste the breath for it and continued his task, yelping out softly when he accidentally brushed his left hand.  
  
It was swollen almost anywhere it could, and though none of the fingers were broken, they were severely bruised, the range of colors covering everything available, from sickly green to angry red.  
  
Wincing as he gingerly cradled it next to his shoulder, he continued to open his shirt with his good hand. The sight that greeted him down on his chest and abdomen was commented by a sharp gasp.  
  
"Oh great!"  
  
Just from the bare look of the muttled bruises and red spots he could feel the pain he had to expect. Reluctantly, he touched his skin, flinching from his own touch.  
  
"Ow! Double-ow!!!"  
  
The ows became even more once he brought himself to continue his exermination. Fortunately his first diagnosis had been right, there was nothing broken or cracked. Still, when he was done, he could feel a slight shade of sweat dry on his forehead from the pain. Leaning his head back against the wall, he was about to just close his eyes again, to blend out the dull throbbing in his head, the hot pain in his ribs and most of all the by now increasing sensation of aching tightness in his left hand. The skin on it became drawn due to the swelling, and it hurt considerably.  
  
He was almost asleep again, when he suddenly noticed that the moaning he´d heard for some time by now wasn´t produced by himself. Opening his eyes in surprise, he looked around the alley for the first time since he´d woken up. Now that he was looking for it, it didn´t take him long to spot the other figure huddled against the opposite wall, not far away from where he lay.  
  
Frowning, he bent a little forward. "Hey?" he asked softly. It hurt him to speak, so he wasn´t very pleased when he got no response from the other man.  
  
"Hey, you okay?" he tried again, feeling his doctor-mode kicking in slowly, but surely. Using his good hand, he tried to steady himself at the wall and crawled to his feet.  
  
Once more the stranger failed to answer. Jesse could see him move slightly, though. The first step towards the obviously injured man sent a wave of pain through his sore ribcage, and gasping in pain, he almost lost his balance. For a brief moment he closed his eyes and just concentrated on his breathing, then he once again placed one foot in front of the other, so that he reached the fallen figure eventually.  
  
"It´s okay," he assured his patient gently, before he touched his shoulder carefully. "I´m a doctor. Just lay ... still," he finished, shocked when he saw the face of the man. Raymond Liotta´s boyish features were contorted in pain, his chocolate eyes, though half-open, didn´t seem to see a thing, but looked inwards at the pain he was in.  
  
His slender figure moved slightly, as if he tried to flee his own body which had become a prison of torture to him. Beads of sweat ran down his forehead, though he felt alarmingly cold to the touch.  
  
Now remembering that it had been Liotta´s gun wound that had brought him into this mess in the first place, Jesse quickly checked the man´s shoulder, trying to rouse him during the examination, but without success.  
  
The bullet had gone straight through Liotta´s shoulder, dried blood sticked to his shirt and jacket. It looked serious, but not life-threatening. Looking further, Jesse inadvertently brushed against the man´s side, earning a loud moan for that. Frowning, the doctor carefully shoved the jacket aside. The textile on the inside felt damp, and now that he had a good look at Liotta´s left side, Jesse knew why. Liotta´s shirt was blood-soaked, his whole side seemed to have turned into a sea of blood.   
  
"Mr. Liotta," Jesse tried to announce the man, while he opened the remains of the shirt in order to get a better look at the wound. There was no answer except for some groans due to the pain the doctor was causing with his hands softly probing the injured area.   
  
"Raymond," Jesse said a little louder, when he saw that his patient´s eyes had closed, but it was of no use.  
  
Sighing, the young doctor decided to let it be for the moment and concentrated on the problem at hand. Checking the injury, he found that the bullet hadn´t left the body.   
  
"Crabs!" Jesse murmured. Running a bloodied hand through his hair, he desperately tried to figure out what to do, which proved to be difficult with his own head still swimming in pain.  
  
At last he decided that there was no way he could leave the injured man alone in the alley while he got help, for he would most certainly be too slow in his momentary condition. That bullet needed to come out now. The only solution was to get Liotta into the practice and remove it there.   
  
And there was the next problem, Jesse thought frustratedly. He couldn´t possibly carry the man inside, not with his ribs feeling the way they did and his hand turning from blue to green in a visible speed. Besides, Liotta was twice his size and weight. There was no one in the practice who could have helped him, either, Jesse found as he checked his watch desperately. His shift wouldn´t be over for another two hours.   
  
Looking at Liotta, who´d become very still by now, Jesse finally sighed deeply and gently slapped the man´s cheeks in order to rouse him.  
  
"Hey!" he called. "Wake up! Ray! You gotta wake up now! C´mon!"  
  
It took him a lot more of yelling and slapping, but finally Liotta´s lids were lifted agonisingly slowly, revealing glazed brown pupils. Unable to focus, he stared at the doctor confusedly.   
  
"Yeah!" Jesse encouraged him. "That´s the way, good. Can you hear me?"  
  
Cracking his eyes open just a little more, Liotta nodded weakly. He made a weary attempt at asking where he was, but found his tongue was too heavy for this simple task.  
  
"You´re in the alley next to Dr. Donahue´s practice," Jesse explained clearly. "You´ve been shot. We´ve to get you inside so that I can help you."  
  
At the questioning glance he received, Jesse added: "I´m Dr. Jesse Travis, I work for you. D´you recognize me?"  
  
Liotta shook his head ever so slightly.  
  
"I´m a doctor," Jesse repeated. "I´m gonna help you. But you´ve to help me here, too. D´you think you can stand?"  
  
Liotta nodded and tried to push himself off the ground, but cried out in pain almost instantly and fell back onto his back. Shaking his head, he closed his eyes once more.  
  
"This wasn´t exactly a question," Jesse said and grabbed the man´s good arm. "If you wanna live, you´ll give it another try. C´mon."  
  
Though confused and in pain, Liotta understood the doctor´s words, and so he lifted his upper body off the ground once more, wincing at the slight movement. Jesse placed a steadying hand on Liotta´s back, and together they managed to get to their feet, both swaying slightly, but ready to go.  
  
It took them a little while to reach and enter the practice; by the time they were finally inside, Jesse was panting heavily. Liotta was only semi-conscious, when he was led to the operating room and gently layed on the stretcher there. His eyes were once more closed and his breathing shallow. His color of face matched the walls.  
  
Wiping the sweat from his face, Jesse sagged against the door of the room for a short moment. His vision was blurred, and he found it hard to draw in breath against the hot pain radiating from his chest and abdomen. But he couldn´t allow his weaknes to get the better part of him now. A patient needed him.  
  
Ignoring the pain as best as he could, he pushed himself off the wall and crossed the room to the stretcher. Liotta had lost consciousness again. After removing the man´s shirt and jacket, the doctor once more checked the wound. Fortunately the bullet didn´t stick in the flesh very deeply, but still Liotta had lost an alarming amount of blood. There was no telling if he´d survive the removal.   
  
At least he had approbiate instruments, Jesse thought thankfully, and turned to prepare for the procedure. When he was ready and about to start the sedation, Liotta´s eyes flickered open.  
  
"Wh-who´s there?" he whispered horasely.  
  
"Jesse Travis," Jesse answered. "I found you outside the practice. You have a shot wound to your left side, and the bullet´s still inside. I´ve to remove it."  
  
"Jesse Travis," Liotta said, frowning. "You´re the new kid."  
  
"That´s right. But I really have to ..."  
  
"Y-you´re any good?" the man asked through gritted teeth.  
  
"I let you be the judge of that," Jesse replied gently. "And now jus..."  
  
"Am I ... gonna make it?"   
  
"Sure," Jesse answered quickly and smiled.   
  
"Kid," Liotta said firmly, before Jesse could say any more, "don´t take me for a fool! Am I gon..." A sharp gasp of pain interrupted his question.  
  
"You have a good chance of surviving," Jesse said honestly, "if you let me start now. So ..."  
  
"I ... I´ve to tell you some...something," Liotta insisted. He´d closed his eyes against the burning sensation in his side. Sweat ran down his face.   
  
Jesse frowned at the demand, but he was too much doctor to let his curiosity take over in a situation like this. "You can tell me lat..."  
  
"No!" his patient yelled. He looked more a boy than ever, all the cruelty seemed to have been washed away by the pain. "No," he repeated almost beggingly. "I´ve to tell someone. I can´t die without ... anyone ... knowing ..."  
  
"You´re not gonna die," Jesse assured, but saw that it was of no use to try to convince the man of letting him start now. Obviously something was bothering Liotta, something so horrible he couldn´t bear the thought of dying without confessing it to someone. And what could that dark secret be, but murder, Jesse mused with a mixture of anger and fear.  
  
Surprised, he noticed he was afraid of Liotta admitting Carlie´s murder to him. There he was, the faithful doctor, Mark Sloan´s protégé, supposed to safe the man who´d murdered an innocent woman, brought pain to his best friend, who was responsible for hundreds of illegal operations, who´d ruined an uncountable number of lifes and futures.   
  
Yet, at the moment, he was Jesse´s patient. A wounded man in the need of help the younger man was bound to give. But the moment he admitted the murders ... How could he safe him now, Jesse thought desperately. How could he let him live when Carlie had had to die?  
  
"Relax, I´m gonna sedate you now," Jesse said tonelessly, but was stopped by a weak hand feebly grabbing his damaged one. He flinched from the pain and whirled to face Liotta. Surprised, he saw tears in the older man´s eyes.  
  
"No, doc, please, I ..." He sighed deeply, if out of pain or emotion, Jesse couldn´t tell. "I am responsible for a murder and a suicide."  
  
Silence. Absolute silence hit the room. Jesse felt numb all of a sudden, all feeling had left his body. "Sui...suicide?" he repeated in a mere whisper.  
  
"She ... she was my girl-friend," Liotta continued. He hadn´t noticed the doctor´s dismay, but was lost in painfull memories. "We ... wanted to marry, but ... Her mother died. A few years ago. Shot. She was told it had been a robbery, a junky," he laughed softly, "but I ... I knew the truth."   
  
He made a short pause in order to regain some strength. Sad eyes scanned an imaginary spot on the wall behind Jesse, were the past lay. "Her mother had betrayed her father. I-it was shotly before we opend this practice, her father and ... and me. I ... knew him pretty good. She´d stolen his money for this other guy, her mother," he continued, sounding almost as if surprised, as if realizing just now what had happened back then. "Stole from him. Betrayed him. Wh-when he found out ..."   
  
Jesse´s eyes widened as another pause occured. Steve never had mentioned Carlie´s mother. But then it never had seemed important.  
  
A single tear cascaded Liotta´s cheek as he went on: "He killed her. R-right there, in their house. Shot her. A-and," he said with bright eyes, a humorless grin spreading over his lips, "he let the girl find the body. That bastard." Glancing at the doctor for the first time since he´d started telling, Liotta weakly wiped away the strains of tears on his face. "I never told her," he said ernestly. "She shouldn´t know, I figured. B-but ... Oh god." He drew in a calming breath.  
  
Jesse wondered if it was wise to let him continue. The speaking was taking strength from the body, which it didn´t have to give. Yet, he needed to know what had happened. Impatiently, he kept on listening.  
  
"W-we broke up then. I left town. But I never ... never stopped loving ..." Once more Liotta´s gaze had drifted off to a place unseen by the doctor. As the memories revealed themselfes, though, he was drawn back to reality and cleared his throat horasely. "When I returned I heard she had someone new."   
  
The statemant was given ice-coldly. The doctor didn´t even try to hide his dismay, Liotta didn´t notice it, anyway.  
  
"I got angry. Naturally I got angry. And so I ..." His voice failed him, his gaze fell in remorse.  
  
"You told her," Jesse said slowly. "You told her that her father had shot her mother. And Carlie ..."  
  
"Why did I do it?" Liotta asked the air. His eyes seemed to have lost their color. Jesse could have sworn he saw wrinkles built in the soft flesh beneath them. A broken man lay before him, now closing his eyes, if out of exhaustion, pain or resignation, the doctor couldn´t tell.  
  
Nevertheless, he had to know for sure. "She killed her father? - Raymond!" Forgetting about the urgency of the medical procedure he was about to perform, Jesse ruttled his patient roughly, causing him to wince in pain. He didn´t care. "Hey! You gotta tell me! Did ..."  
  
"What have I done?" the anguished man whispered. Jesse felt his hands flinch away, when he spoke. The numbness from earlier had left his body by now, his heart was racing. He felt as if he´d taken another one of Donahue´s pills. His aching ribs tightened his lungs, and he could hear himself pant.  
  
Liotta´s eyes had opened again. A glassy gaze was put upon the doctor. Strains of tears dried on the boyish cheeks. "Help me, doc," he whispered desperately, then closed his eyes again.  
  
Jesse stared at him in dismay. He opened his mouth to utter some assuring words, but none came to his mind. His gaze wandered down to the syringe in his hands, and pushing every other thought aside, he started his task of saving Raymond Liotta´s life. There was nohing more he could do.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Dr. Donahue´s cheery whistling echoed through the rooms of his practice. He took off his coat, checked his office for calls, and then turned to the rooms of the unreal world, those two he felt he wasn´t actually having anything to do with. Raymond´s rooms.  
  
And Raymond it was who he spotted now that he´d opened the first door. A small gasp of shock escaped his lips, when he saw his old friend lay on the bed in recovery, his chest and shoulder heavily bandaged, his color of face matching his pillow.   
  
Next to him, on a chair, sat the small form of the new kid, Donahue had forgotten his name. He was sound asleep, too, and stepping closer, Donahue could now see that the kid could use some bandaging himself. He had a nasty gash right above his left eye, blood had dried on his young features, and the way he hold his arm protectively over his ribs was enough for any doctor to assume that there were more nasty-looking things under his torn and bloodied shirt, too.  
  
"What the hell ..." the older man muttered in dismay. He quickly checked his friend´s vital signs and sighed in relief when he found him just asleep, not unconscious. He then turned to the young man in the chair and reached out to ruttle him gently.  
  
The moment his fingers had touched the younger man´s shoulder, blue confused eyes snapped open and in a paniced attempt to get away from the hand touching him, he fell off the chair, groaning loudly when his already sore ribs connected with the ground.  
  
Donahue had drawn his hands away fastly. "Easy, kiddo!" he said quickly, raising his hands as if to show he wasn´t armed. "`sjust me."  
  
Jesse stared at him in confusion, before his gaze wandered over to the sleeping figure on the bed. Remembering where he was now, he slowly came to his feet, wincing at the protests of his ribs and head. A shaky hand was lifted to rub his eyes, and Jesse frowned, when he felt the shade of dampness on his face.  
  
"You´re bleeding," Donahue filled him in, noticing the doctor´s startled surprise at the discovery. "Why don´t you sit down again and tell me what the hell happened, while I take a look at you, hm?"  
  
A simple nod was all he got for a response. Sitting down in the chair again, Jesse suddenly yelped and drew his left hand to his chest, covering it with the other one.  
  
"What´s wrong with your hand?" Donahue asked. "Here, let me see."  
  
Reluctantly, Jesse outstretched his hand, revealing the by now deep black bruise that spread over the whole of his knuckles and most of his fingers. The older doctor winced in sympathy.  
  
"What happened?"  
  
"Someone stepped on it," Jesse replied casually. "D´you checked on him?" he added with a nod to Liotta.  
  
"Yes, he´s sleeping. Wha..."  
  
"He got shot," Jesse explained. "Twice. I had to remove a bullet from his side, but I think he´ll make it. You sure he´s conscious?"  
  
Nodding assuringly, Donahue asked further: "Shot by whom? And who worked you over like that?!"  
  
"Dunno. Few guys. I think it were three. I don´t know," he repeated at Donahue´s unsatisfied look. "I saw them when I arrived. Outside. They´d already shot him in the shoulder, and I tried to ..." He had to stop suddenly, when a wave of pain shot through his head. Moaning, he lifted his hand to his eyes to squeeze them shut.   
  
"Maybe you should lay down, too," Donahue suggested. "You probably have a concussion."  
  
"No," Jesse objected softly. "No, I ... I´ve to return to work. What time is it, anyway?"  
  
"Half past seven."  
  
"Oh crabs," the younger doctor sighed and stood, swaying slightly. "Gotta go. You keep a look on him?"  
  
"Yeah, sure, but - hey," Donahue grabbed his arm gently, but still caused pain by touching a bruised area. He didn´t notice the younger man´s wince, though. "Kid, wait. You need some proper attention here. I think those ribs of yours should better be taped or stuff. And this," he added pointing at Jesse´s forehead, "definitely needs some stitching."  
  
"No, I´m fine really," Jesse said as convincing as a run-over rabbit. "Just give me a Band-Aid for it, `kay?"  
  
Raising his hands to show he was giving up (After all, what did he care?) Donahue smiled friendly and turned to bring a Band-Aid, suggesting casually: "Still, it might be better if you washed the blood off your face, doc. You don´t want your patients run away screaming, do you?"  
  
At Jesse´s questioning look, he pointed towards the sink. "C´mon. You look like Dougie Howser met Freddy Krueger."  
  
Stepping over to the sink, Jesse noticed for the first time that he was not only limping slightly, but also looking like he´d been beaten up in an alley, too.   
  
"Great," he muttered under his breath, while he carefully splashed water into his sore face. "Just great."  
  
What was he going to tell Mark? He had to come up with something. Something good, like ...  
  
  
  
  
  
"Surfing accident."   
  
"Surfing accident?" the nurse at the registration repeated with a wince of sympathy. "Ow. What d´you do, lie face down on the board?"  
  
"Something like that," he smiled and continued his way down the hall. So far so good. He´d only met three people at this time, and only one of them had asked about his battered face. His injured hand he kept hidden in his coat-pockets, which hurt considerably, for he had to clench his hurting fingers that way. He just hoped he didn´t meet one of the Sloans or Amanda today. He surely didn´t feel up to face their worried and most certainly doubting expressions just now. Tomorrow, after a few hours of sleep, lying would be so much easier.  
  
But Murphy´s Law didn´t let him off the hook.  
  
"Jess!"  
  
Acually flinching at the sudden call behind his back, the young doctor froze in mid-step, cursing his slowness, Mark´s ability to appear in situations when he was less wanted to appear, and his body panicing at the task which lay before him. Drawing in a deep breath as to brace him for the unbracable, he turned slowly, managing to smile wryly, while his friends - Oh great, Mark AND Steve! Could things possibly go any better?! - approached him with concern quickly reaching their eyes.  
  
"Wow, whatever happened to you?" Steve asked, shocked, once they were standing next to him.  
  
Okay, here we go, Jesse thought dryly. "Sur... Ahm, surfing accident." Kicking his butt inwardly, he fought the urge to squeeze his eyes shut in frustration. And the winner is ... someone else, a nasty voice in his head informed him.  
  
"Surfing accident," Mark repeated. He could have said "You´re lying." straight to his face, without having to change the tone of his voice.  
  
Still, Jesse wasn´t going to give up. Not yet. "Yeah. I ... uh ..."  
  
"Fell off the board?" Steve suggested in the same tone his father had used.  
  
Feeling even smaller than usual, Jesse forced himself to look up to the two Sloans towering above him. "No, a wave hit me, and then my board was thrown ..."  
  
"Since when d´you go surfing in the evening?" Steve interrupted him impatiently. He obviously wasn´t up to believe whatever was told him today.  
  
"Ahm, I just ... The waves were just that great today, so I couldn´t resist. And I really gotta see a patient now," he added without taking a breath between the sentences. Raising both of his hands to a feeble, nervous gesture, he stated: "I´m already very late. So if you´ll excuse me."  
  
With that he turned.  
  
"That´s quite a bruise you have on your hand there," Mark´s voice hold him back, though.   
  
"Yeah, I ... uh ... I ... squashed my finger in a door. Not my day, huh? Well, see ya!" Having spotted the lift doors opening at the end of the hall, Jesse broke into a sprint. As he smiled unconvincingly assuringly at his friends, the doors closed, covering the image of him sagging against the wall wearily.  
  
Steve and Mark stood where Jesse had left them, staring at the lift. Finally, Steve opened his mouth, but was stopped from saying anything, by his father´s hand quickly raising in front of him.  
  
"Don´t. Say it," Mark ordered firmly. "Just don´t." Without waiting for his son´s reaction, he continued his way.  
  
"Whatever you say, dad," Steve mumbled and followed him.  
  
  
  
  
  
"What am I gonna do? What am I gonna DO?!"  
  
Pacing the men´s room in the sixth floor, where most certainly no cop would suddenly burst into and force him to admit he was in deep trouble this time, Jesse repeated the question over and over again, as if waiting for the sinks to come up with a solution eventually.  
  
"What am I gonna do?!"  
  
Should he - COULD he - tell Steve the truth? He had to tell Leer. Liotta was innocent. Of course what with Jesse´s inside-information about the practice and all, the man would go down for dealing with human organs, but he was no murderer. Actually, he was just a poor bastard, whose life was ruined by guilt and remorse. Jesse couldn´t help feeling sympathy for him, even after all he´d seen in the practice.  
  
Yet - he couln´t tell Steve, could he? What would the lieutenant do, if he knew it? The image of Steve´s face at "Bob´s" the night Jesse had told him about Carlie, swept through the doctor´s mind. Could he really bear to see it once more? Could he bear to bring pain to his friend again? Pain that would last, that would ...  
  
Stopping in mid-step, Jesse suddenly found he didn´t even know how Steve was doing. It had been - how long since he last took a good look at him? He couldn´t remember. He´d been so involved in the undercover-thing that he hadn´t had the time to really pay attention, to really look.  
  
"Oh damnit!" he cursed, hitting his fist against his right palm. The sound of his yelp fading in the room reminded him of not doing that for quite some time. Gently rubbing his sore knuckles, he sighed. What a mess this was! How could he ever get out of it again? Leer´s fault, he decided. It was all Leer´s fault. If he hadn´t convinced Jesse to join this stupid assignment, none of this ever would haver happened. He´d been there to actually help Steve instead of hiding behind the false idea of helping. What had he gotten out of the whole thing, anyway?! Bruised ribs and a concussion.  
  
Leaning heavily against the wall, he closed his eyes. The pain in his ribs had increased over the pacing, and by now he found it hard to breathe. His head still hurt, too, as if someone knocked against the inside of his brain. Probably his bad conscience, he mused.  
  
Only semi-aware he noticed himself sliding down to the ground slowly, till he sat against the wall. From there it only was a matter of time till he sank to one side, asleep before his head touched the ground.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"At least admit you don´t believe him," Steve said firmly, while following Mark out of the lift. The total silence he´d experienced in there had left him sort of unnerved, till he was on the edge of yelling at his innocent father out of the need to yell at someone.   
  
"Steve," Mark replied dryly, "what sort of a question is that?!" He, too, felt frustrated and therefore cranky, but regretted his harsh tone the second he´d used it. "Sorry. Of course I don´t believe him. Something´s going on here, and I don´t think it´s about waves."  
  
"Neither do I," Steve nodded and frowned when looking around as if for the first time. "What are we doing here, by the way?" He´d been so wrapped up with concern an unfocused anger, that he´d just followed his dad wherever he would lead him.  
  
"Trying to get some answers," Mark answered and opened the door to the men´s room, sighing deeply at the expected sight in there. At the far end of a wall Jesse lay on the ground, curled to a ball like he always was when asleep. His injured hand lay outstretched next to his body as if placed out of the way to not get hurt further. Even in sleep his features were drawn to a painfilled grimace.   
  
Coming to a halt beside his father, Steve watched his small friend in dismay. Following Mark´s example, he sighed deeply, then looked at his dad to ask: "How did you know that?"  
  
"You can´t get any farer away from the ER," was the sad reply.  
  
"Or from us," Steve added.   
  
Not answering to that, Mark crossed the space to the sleeping doctor and crouched down beside him.   
  
Listening to Jesse´s breathing for a moment, he frowned slightly, and then carefully as not to rouse the young man, shoved the blue scrubs upwards a little, revealing a large black bruise, which melted into another one reaching up his chest even more. Mark couldn´t help let out a small gasp of shock when he saw the angry red spots in the discolored flesh. When he reached out to ever so gently touch the hurt ribcage, Jesse moaned softly and flinched away from the hand slightly.  
  
"Dad?" Steve asked from where he was still standing.  
  
"Come over here, son," Mark ordered quietly, and shifted his position for Steve to see Jesse´s chest, when he stopped next to his father.   
  
"Dad, please tell me we´re not peeking under Jesse´s scrubs," the lieutenant joked half-heartedly.  
  
Grimacing, Mark looked up at Steve, who winced at what he saw. "Be aware of surfboards, they might kick you."  
  
"Oh god, what´s going on here?!"  
  
"I don´t know, Steve, but this," Mark said and pointed at the younger man´s ribcage, "definitely has the form of a boot rather than a board. And that," he added, letting go off Jesse´s shirt and turning to his outstretched hand on the ground, "too."   
  
As if to underline his words, he stood, raising a foot to let it hover above the bruise on Jesse´s hand.  
  
"Someone beat him up," Steve stated. "But who? And why?" As a short pause occured, he frowned at his father, who still looked at the sleeping young man on the ground. "D´you think it has something to do with drugs?"  
  
"Maybe. But all I know for sure is that he´s in deep trouble this time. And I´m tired of being lied at," he added firmly.  
  
Steve cast his father a sympathetic glance. He knew how much Mark cared for his young protégé. Normally Jesse would turn to him without hesitation when he was in trouble. Steve couldn´t recall Jesse ever having lied to one of them, they were like his family. The thought that he was hiding something from them, something that left him beaten to a heap on the floor of the men´s room, seemed almost absurd.  
  
"Shall we wake him?" he finally asked, but Mark shook his head.  
  
"No, he would only get mad at us."  
  
"Then what shall we do? - We are going to do something, right?"  
  
"Course. But we´ll wait for the right moment," Mark replied.  
  
"And when that will be?"  
  
"You´ll see."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"What do you have to do in this place to be served?!"  
  
"Stop yelling like an idiot, for example," Jesse muttered under his breath, while he hurried to place the dirty dishes he was carrying somewhere out of the way to the grumpy customer, who was sitting there for five minutes now. "Sorry, sir," Jesse apologized as convincingly as he could with the burning sensation in his ribcage and lungs. "So what can I do for you?"  
  
"Hurry up would be nice," the man commented. "I didn´t inted to spent the whole day here."  
  
"I´m glad to hear that," Jesse replied dryly and froze when he noticed he´d said out loud what had been supposed to be a mere thought.   
  
"Hey, listen, kid," the man growled, "there are other places like this, `kay? I dont have to ..."  
  
"No, right, you don´t. And you know what? My head hurts, and so does my hand, and actually I´m not really up to jumping at some fruitcake´s orders today, so why don´t you take your f..."   
  
"Is there a problem here?" he was suddenly interrupted by a quiet, casual voice behind him and turned to face Detective Grady Leer eyeing him with awe.   
  
"No, detective," Jesse replied cooly. "Everything´s shiny here. This gentleman just wanted to leave. Right?" he asked the man.  
  
"You bet!" the customer stated furiously. "And don´t count on me ever coming here again!"  
  
"Sorry to hear that," Jesse murmured while watching the man rushing out of the restaurant. Then he turned to cross the floor to the bar, from where he still had to remove the dirty dishes.  
  
"Well?" Leer asked, sitting down at the bar. "What´s the urgency? - Jesse," he said when receiving no answer, but the sight of Jesse´s back turned to him, as the doctor brought away the dishes. "Hey! You wanted to see me, so ..."  
  
"And you wanted to hurry up!" Jesse interrupted him harshly as he turned back to the bar. "I called you hours ago!"   
  
Actually he´d called Leer after having waken up shivering and aching all over in the men´s room. Though he was more than greatfull that obviously nobody in the hospital had noticed his little nap at so unapprobiate a place, the feeling of desperation had increased inside him ever since. Now that his pain had decreased to a dull ever-present throbbing and numbness, he could pay all his attention to the problem at hand. A decision had to be made.  
  
He decided to blame Leer.   
  
But the detective hadn´t been in the precinct anymore that late in the night, so Jesse had repeated the call the next morning, before his shift at "Bob´s" had started. Three hours had gone by since then.  
  
"I did!" the detective defended himself. "But I can´t just leave everything at every call of yours. I´ve a job to do, y´know."  
  
"Oh? I thought I was doing your job."  
  
A short pause occured. Leer narrowed his eyes and placed his chin on his palm. "What happened to your face?"  
  
"Liotta didn´t kill Carlie Vitense," Jesse replied instead of an answer.   
  
Leer remained silent, just continued to look at the younger man.   
  
"But you know that already," Jesse continued "don´t you? You knew it all along." His voice had risen a little due to the anger he felt at the man, but he quickly regained his self-control.   
  
"Yes," Leer said.   
  
"Yes?! That all?! Just yes?! I risked my life for ... What do you want from the man? Huh? What is it you really wanna frame him for?"  
  
"I never would have gotten the permission for the undercover go, if Liotta´s file hadn´t had "murder" on the cover!" Leer explained agitatedly. "And you saw what they do in this practice, they ..."  
  
"You told Steve Liotta killed Carlie! You know what it will do to him to find out about her suicide?! About her murder?! God, I can´t believe I did this!"  
  
"I didn´t inted to tell Steve," Leer said casually.  
  
The doctor froze in motion. "He´ll read about the trial, and then he´ll know."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because ... No. No! Y-you don´t. Grady, this man didn´t kill anyone! He wouldn´t be my vote for president and I sure as hell hope he goes to jail for what he did to those people, but he´s no murderer! I won´t let you sent someone to the stuhl who´s innocent."  
  
"Really?!" Leer asked with an amused smile spreading rapidly on his lips. "And what´re you gonna do about it?"  
  
Jesse stared at the man in disbelief. "Are you nuts?! You´re planning to accuse an innocent man of murder! D´you really think I´ll just sit back and let you do that? I know the truth, and I will tell it!"  
  
"Yeah," Leer shrugged. "You do that. And who do you figure will believe you? Huh?"  
  
Slowly, but surely, Jesse felt himself lose his ground. Eyeing the detective suspiciously, he asked: "W-why wouldn´t they believe me?"  
  
Leer laughed lowly. "Jess, c´mon. Believe you? An addict who worked for Liotta for what now, two weeks?" He chuckled slightly, while placing his chin in both palms now. "Would you believe you? After you lied to your friends? D´you really think Sloan hasn´t noticed anything, yet? Oh Jess," he added with another short laugh and stood to leave, "you´ll continue this thing till I say it´s over, an you´ll tell the judge whatever I want you to say or you will go down all the way with your boss."  
  
Jesse couldn´t believe what he was hearing. His whole body had gone numb. Staring at Leer in utter shock, he shook his head slowly. "I won´t do it."  
  
"That´s what you said last time," Leer grinned. " `sides, you really wanna be the one to tell Sloan?"  
  
"Why are you doing this? What did Liotta do to you?"  
  
Leer looked at him silently for a few moments, than grinned wryly, lifting a hand to wink. "Consider yourself still a member of the team, Dr. Travis. I´ll call you."  
  
Jesse looked after the detective as the door fell closed behind him.   
  
"Oh god, what have I gotten myself into?!" he muttered desperately, covering his face with his hands.   
  
  
  
  
  
"Who was that?" Mark asked as Steve put away his cell phone and entered the Doctor´s Lounge again after having stepped outside for the call.  
  
"Grady Leer," Steve answered, a grim expression on his face. "Liotta´s been shot yesterday. He´s at Donahue´s practice at the moment, so the investigations will have to stop for some time now. Damn!" he muttered frustratedly, as he sank down on the sofa next to Amanda who reached out to comfortingly stroke his arm.  
  
"Who´s Donahue?" Mark asked. "I think I know that name."  
  
"He´s the doctor who owns the practice they do their ... operations in," Steve replied disgustedly. "Of course he hasn´t reported the gun wound, but Leer´s guy informed him. This will make things take a whole lot longer."  
  
"I´m sorry, Steve," Amanda said gently. "I know how much this investigation means to you. D´you regret it that you´re not on the case?"  
  
"No," Steve winked. "Grady´s a good cop, and it´s not his fault the guy got shot. It´s just that ..."  
  
He stopped in mid-sentence when he suddenly noticed the small form of his best friend leave the lift and head straight for the Lounge, where he´d spotted his friends.  
  
"Hey!" he greeted them a little out of breath. "I gotta talk to you."  
  
Exchanging looks with his son, Mark rouse to his feet, closing the door behind Jesse. "That´s good, ´cause we need to talk to you, too," he said ernestly.  
  
Jesse felt his features freeze to a shocked expression. "What?" he asked in a chocked whisper. "Wh-what d´you mean?"  
  
"Surfing accident?" Mark asked, reaching out for Jesse´s injured hand.  
  
Though he flinched at the sudden touch, the young doctor remained calm. "You´re right, I lied at you, I was ..."  
  
"We know," Steve interrupted him firmly. "We saw your other injuries last night. In the men´s room."  
  
Jesse´s eyes grew wide at the revelation. A dreadfull feeling formed a tight knot in his throat. "Really?" he asked dryly. "Wow, you should think your friends wouldn´t let you spent the night on the floor, huh?"  
  
"We know about the drugs, too," Mark said, letting go off Jesse´s hand to take a few steps backwards, so that he was standing next to Steve and Amanda now.  
  
Looking at the wall of stern looks in front of him, Jesse narrowed his eyes. "What´s this supposed to be? An interrogation? What d´you guys want from me?!"  
  
"The truth," Steve replied.  
  
Casting him a long look, Jesse smiled humorlessly. "Believe me, you don´t want the thruth."  
  
Frowning at the unexpected answer, Steve opened his mouth, but was interrupted by Amanda, who said in the gentliest of her voices: "Jesse, we´re just worried about you."  
  
"Yes," Mark agreed. "We only want to help you. We´re your friends."  
  
"I know!" Jesse shot back desperately. Bowing his head, he searched for the right words. "But it´s not that easy. It´s ... I can´t ..."  
  
"Damnit, Jess!" Steve yelled at him all of a sudden. Jesse´s head snapped up surprisedly. "Cut out this crab! Just tell us what´s going on with you! I only recently lost someone close to me, if you remember, and I´m not that eager to have this experience repeated, `kay?! You understand? So what is it?! Is it about drugs?"  
  
A small frown built on Jesse´s forehead, crawled over it and settled in his eyes. "Y-you think I ..."  
  
"All of a sudden you´re too busy to show up at "Bob´s" in time," Steve started, "you´re constantly exhausted and falling asleep, you´re treating patients while you´re obviously high - don´t you dare deny it!" he added threateningly as Jesse opened his mouth in protest. "And then you get beaten up! How does that look for you?"  
  
"Like you´re jumping to conclusions," Jesse replied coldly. He couldn´t believe his friends were accusing him of taking drugs. Anger and pain mixed in his already desperate state, and he felt himself slowly lose control. "Like you´re not trusting me. I really thought I could rely on you, but I was obviously wrong."  
  
With that he turned to leave, but was stopped by Steve grabbing his arm. "Wait."  
  
"Let me go!" Jesse snapped and jerked his arm free. It sent him a few steps stumbling backwards, and he shot a furious gaze at the lieutenant.  
  
"You don´t go anywhere till we got some answers!" Steve growled, stepping nearer to the smaller man again.   
  
"Oh, what you wanna do, beat them outta me?! I´m handling this my way, Steve, and there´s nothing you can do about it!"  
  
"Oh no?! How about calling my colleagues from drug squad? You really think I let my best friend go down the ..."  
  
"I´m not on drugs!" Jesse yelled frustratedly. "I can´t tell you the truth, but you gotta trust me on this!" He´d lowered his voice to a normal volume and added a single "Please."  
  
Steve looked at him hard. Finally he said: "I can´t."  
  
Mark and Amanda exchanged a worried look as they saw all color drain from Jesse´s face.   
  
"What?" the young man whispered.  
  
"I can´t trust you on this, Jess," Steve repeated calmly. "You didn´t act very trustworthy lately. I don´t know if I believe you. You lied."  
  
Jesse´s gaze never left Steve´s as he now approached the cop, swallowing dryly. He´d risked his life. He´d been beaten up. In order to help Steve. To ease the pain that was torturing him. And now this man, who he considered his best friend, who was like a brother to him, told him he didn´t trust him.   
  
"You wanna know the truth?" he asked quietly, staring right into Steve´s eyes. "Carlie wasn´t killed. She commited suicide." He listened to the echo of his own words, shocked at what he´d just said. But now it was too late. "Yes, Steve, she commited suicide, because she killed her father."  
  
Time seemed to stand still. Silence grabbed hold of everyone. Mark and Amanda hold their breath, unable to understand the words they´d just heard.  
  
Steve looked as if he´d been shot. "How ..." was the only thing he managed to whisper.  
  
"I can´t tell you," Jesse replied softly. Now that he´d said it, he regretted it deeply. The pain in his friend´s eyes was unbearable. "But it´s the truth. I´m sorry, Steve."  
  
"No," Steve suddenly said, looking back at his father, then at Jesse again, who could feel something terrible going on and stumbled back a step.   
  
"St-Steve ..." he said calmingly.  
  
"Carlie didn´t do that," Steve said as if it was a statement. "She´d never have done that. You hear me?!" he was yelling by now and grabbed the smaller man by his collar. "How dare you?!"  
  
Jesse thought about begging for a second, but decided against it. Without trying to free himself, he looked into the lieutenant´s eyes again. "It´s the truth, Steve."  
  
"You´re lying!" Steve growled and before his father or Amanda could prevent him from it, hit the younger man across the face hard. The force sent Jesse flying to the opposite wall, where he slid to the ground in an untidy heap, unconscious.  
  
"Steve!" Mark called out, but his son just stared at the still form of his friend, realizing what he´d just done. Without another word he practically fled the room.  
  
His father stared after him for a moment, then turned to crouch down next to Amanda, who had turned Jesse gently over to his side. A large bruise was quickly forming on his jaw in addition to his previous ones.  
  
Sighing, Mark ran a hand over his eyes. "What´s happening to you?" he asked the unconscious young man, but didn´t receive an answer.  
  
  
  
  
  
So what is happening to Jesse and the others? Or rather what will happen to them? Answers are to come soon ... 


	5. Leered 5

Yeah! Double-Yeah! Done, I´m done!   
  
"Leered" didn´t quite turn out how I wanted it to be, but I have another story in mind, so hopefully I can make it up to you next time. And hopefully you enjoyed this a little, anyway.  
  
Thanks for the reviews! You guys have been really kind as always. And of course special thanks to Pinky-Kiddo, whose new chaaaaaaaaaaaapters are always reason enough to party! Don´t hang `round the stations, kiddo, but WRITE! Otherwise I´m gonna tell those four Harvs of yours to have a good talk to you ... Grin. Love you, kid, keep DOING it!  
  
Disclaimers still the same. I own all the bad guys, but they´re not very cute. That´s why I decided to kill most of them. Lucky Jess, huh?  
  
Enjoy!  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"Shit!"  
  
He´d hit his best friend. He´d really done it. He´d hit Jesse.  
  
"Great, Sloan, just great! Great, great, great, great, GREAT!"  
  
Hitting the wheel in frustration, Steve Sloan stepped on the gas a little harder, but got a grib on himself fast enough to not kill someone.   
  
"I can´t believe I did this! I hit Jesse!" A short pause followed. "And now I´m talking to myself. This is not happening! This is definitely not happening! - Oh shit!"  
  
A nervous laugh escaped his lips, but couldn´t cover the grim expression on his face.   
  
Carlie hadn´t been killed. She´d killed herself.  
  
"Oh god ..."   
  
Squeezing wheels transported the vehicle to a halt at the side of the road. The figure in it layed his arms over the wheel and placed his forehead on it. Cars rushed by, taking no notice of the catastrophe that revealed itself inside the parking one.  
  
Steve´s thoughts whirled in circles. Carlie had been killed. Taken away from him. Forcefully. She didn´t go.  
  
She didn´t go. She never have ...  
  
Oh, who was he trying to kid?! This was Jesse! Jesse! No matter what was going on with him, Jesse Travis would never lie to him about something like that, never.  
  
Slowly, Steve lifted his head off his arms.   
  
It had to be true. Carlie had shot herself. And her father.   
  
"This is not true! It is not TRUE!" he yelled, punching his wheel so hard it hurt. Yet, he knew it was.  
  
"You don´t want the truth," he heard Jesse´s voice echoing in his head and covered his eyes with his hands.   
  
Drawing in a deep breath, he let his hand slid down his face to his chin. Jesse had told the truth.   
  
The question was: how did Jesse know the truth?  
  
It took Steve exactly two seconds to start the engine again. His hands were trembling.  
  
  
  
  
  
Mark swept a hand over his eyes. Though he knew he wasn´t really, he felt totally spent, exhausted. He´d tried to call Steve a few times, but each time he´d only received the unsatisfying information that his son wasn´t available at the moment.  
  
Well, that was understandale, Mark mused. He would want to vanish from the face of earth, too, if he´d just knocked his best friend into next week, but knowing his son, he was still surprised at the cell phone´s say. Steve wasn´t exactly the sort of man who´d run away, no matter what. But then, he wasn´t exactly the sort of man who´d hit his friends, either.  
  
Sighing deeply, Mark cast a long glance at the sleeping young man on the only bed in the room. Amanda and he had carried the unconscious Jesse over to an available room and tried to rouse him, but without success. The previous beating, the exhaustion, both physical and emotional, had finally taken their toll on the young man, and he wouldn´t wake to their soft calls and ruttles. Finally, they´d decided to let him slee. He surely looked like he could need it.  
  
Dark circles marked the soft skin under his eyes, and even in sleep his features were drawn. The new bruise on his chin that perfectly matched the Band-Aid on his forehead and the slight swelling of his eye beneath, had taken on a blueish look, as if it knew it was the sad one, the one which never should have been called into existence.  
  
Glancing over at the telephone, Mark wondered if he should try to call Steve one more time, but quickly decided against it. Eventually, Steve would make his appearance in here, that was for sure. He´d seen the look in his son´s eyes as he´d fled the room. The pure shock at what he´d just done, what he´d just heard.  
  
Yes, what they all had heard. "You wanna know the truth?"  
  
Mark couldn´t remember Jesse´s voice ever having been so cold than in that devastating second he´d told the truth. And the truth it was, Mark didn´t have a doubt about that. Maybe Jesse had lied to them about how he´d been hurt or where he was spending his time, but Mark couldn´t shake off the feeling that all this lies had served a certain purpose, that they were in some way a sign of the young man´s courage, of something great he´d done.   
  
Great and stupid, the older doctor thought with a grim smile, while he once more lifted Jesse´s shirt slightly to look at the still present bruises on his abdomen.   
  
"What have you gotten yourself into now, Jess, huh?" he asked under his breath, and flinched, when suddenly a shrill beeping filled the room. Grabbing the device, which he´d placed on the little table next to the bed, Mark quickly left the room and turned it off as to not wake Jesse. The young doctor wasn´t in any condition to treat a patient now, anyway. Besides, Mark had the undoubtable feeling that the device was somehow part of the scheme Jesse had tried to hide from them. It seemed to have been producing it´s annoying sound a little too often lately.   
  
Checking the number on the display, Mark found he didn´t know it. The knot in his throat tightened a little. If what he thought was right, his young friend was in a lot more trouble than he´d assumed in the first place ... But there was only one way to find out.  
  
He stepped over to the next telephone and dialed the number the display showed him.  
  
Almost immediately, a female voice answered: "Practice Dr. Donahue, what can I do for you?"  
  
The name fairly rang a bell, but he couldn´t quite remember where or when he´d heard it. "This Dr. Mark Sloan from Comunity General. You just called one of our doctors, Dr. Jesse Travis, and I ..."  
  
"I´m sorry, sir, but there has to be a mistake," the voice interrupted him sweetly. "Goodbye."  
  
"Yeah. Goodbye," Mark hastened to say as memory kicked in. Donahue´s practice. God, why hadn´t he thought of it earlier?! He was really getting old!  
  
Practically slamming the receiver back on it´s place, while he continued to mentally kick himself into next next year, he whirled on his heels to race back to Jesse´s room.   
  
"Okay, young man," he announced his anger before he even had opened the door, "you will answer some questions now, y..."   
  
The room was empty.  
  
"Oh goddamnit! Jesse!!!"  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Jesse heard Mark´s calls alright, but they actually only made him run faster. That the ER was on the lowest floor proved to be a fact to be grateful for once more.You could climb through the windows and take off so easily! Voice of experience speaking, Jesse thought wryly.  
  
He´d waken to the noise of his beeper, but since he really didn´t feel up to do a lot of explaining, he´d lay still till Mark had left the room. Probably to call whoever was calling him, most likely Donahue. So they all would know everything soon. If he wanted to clear up this mess he had to hurry.  
  
It didn´t actually do his ribs any good to climb out of a window and jump to the ground. A few seconds, Jesse just lay where he´d landed, trying to catch his breath and waiting for his vision to clear. To the throbbing pain in his head there was now a new sting to it, emerging from his sore chin. "I´m so glad Steve´s usually on my side," he whispered to himself, but couldn´t find any comfort in wise-cracking this time. He´d seen Steve´s eyes before the lieutenant had hit him. He couldn´t remember ever having seen so much pain in anyone´s eyes. And to think it was him who´d placed it there ...  
  
Shaking off the memory, he forced himself back on his feet. "No time to get all moody now, Travis," he inwardly told himself. "Gotta get moving!"  
  
So off he ran, Mark´s calls fading as the distance got greater.   
  
He didn´t get very far, though. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, a car appeared right next to his limping form, forcing him to stop. The weary feeling of something completely unwanted starting to happen here grabbed hold of the already damaged young man, and he slightly stumpled back.  
  
Again, he didn´t get far. With incredible speed, two large men bounced out of the car and grabbed his arms roughly.  
  
"You Jesse Travis?" one of them asked. He looked about as much a bad guy-assistent as you could possibly look. His name was probably Snake or Pancake, Jesse mused while trying to figure out what to answer. He suddenly got the feeling that being Jesse Travis wasn´t really a good thing right now.  
  
"Ahm ..." was all he managed to answer, before he was interrupted by the second guy holding him.  
  
"´course it´s him, you idiot! You see `nother small whacked guy here?!" He obviously was the wise part of the duo. "`kay, short shanks, you know the drill, right? Move!"  
  
"Who are you?" Jesse asked, while he felt himself being shoved towards the car. Weak struggles were all he could put against the process; the guys didn´t even bother to pay attention to those.  
  
"Shut up," wise-part said casually.  
  
"But I ..."  
  
"He said shut up!" the one referred to as "idiot" yelled and let his stone-like fist connect with the young man´s sore ribcage. The unmistakable sound of cracking bone accompanied the anguished cry that followed. Jesse felt the air leaving his lungs explosion-like, blackness started to overpower his vision. He could wearily feel cold concrete under his palms and cheek, but his surroundings presented themselves blurred, fuzzy.  
  
"Oh great, Georgie, now you carry him!"  
  
"Why me?"  
  
"Well, I didn´t see me knocking him out!"  
  
"He´s not out! Hey, short shanks! - See, he´s still with us, right, kid?"  
  
As he lifted his gaze to the slaps in his face and the calls, Jesse felt himself being dragged to his feet and over to the car where he was thrown inside unceremoniously. The door was slammed shut. The bang hurt his ears and head.   
  
"Don´t go there, Georgie, you´re not gonna drive!"  
  
"Phew! I don´t wanna drive YOUR stupid car!"  
  
"Georgie," Jesse thought with a wry smile, "I´ve just been kidnapped by a guy named Georgie. God help me."  
  
"Hey, short shanks, what´re you laughing about?" Georgie snapped at the rearview mirror.  
  
"You, pal," Jesse whispered.   
  
Fortunately, the darkness drew him in it´s blissfull embrace before he could feel Georgie´s hand come down on his face.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Pain. Jesse was definitely feeling pain emerging from his chest and head. To be honest, it emerged from everywhere. In addition to the sudden cold breeze that let his skin come out in goose-flesh.  
  
"Great, Georgie, just great! You knocked him out for good," an angry voice said near to Jesse´s ear, before a slap to his face made him cringe slightly. Gee, if Georgie only had!  
  
Maybe he was in hell.  
  
"Naw, I didn´t. See, he´s coming to already. He was only taking a little nap, right, short shanks?"  
  
And even the devils were making fun of his size.  
  
"Hey, sleepin´ beauty, gotta wake up now," the previous voice reappeared, along with another slap. "You´ll miss your big moment."  
  
Somehow Jesse couldn´t shake off the feeling that it´d be a lot more healthier to miss his big moment, but then it turned out to not be his choice. Suddenly a large hand was placed tightly over his mouth and nose, making it impossible for him to draw in breath.  
  
Panicing, he tried to grab the hand, but found he couldn´t. Something was keeping him from moving his hands to his front from behind his back. Something rough and carving around his wrists.  
  
"You wanna breathe again, you open your eyes now," the one who wasn´t Georgie said.  
  
Jesse didn´t have to think about the decision long, almost immediately his eyes flew open, begging for air.  
  
"Aww, isn´t he cute?" the guy asked without removing his hand.  
  
"Yeah, and now let him breathe, Tobey. He´s turning blue."  
  
Casting his weakly struggling victim a regretting glance, Tobey hesitantly took away his hand.  
  
Almost passing out from the sensation of air being invited into his lungs again, Jesse gasped and coughed. As his vision cleared slowly, he took in his new surroundings.   
  
Firstly, there were of course Georgie and Tobey, who stood at each of his sides, large and ugly and dangerous, like some mythical god´s true dumb pets. They both wore grey suits, had slicked-back brown hair and could have gotten "professionals" written all over their forehead without making it more obvious what they did for a living.  
  
By that criteria they surely matched the room.  
  
An old, rotten-looking warehouse with broken windows and no sign whatsoever of what it originally had been built for. Jesse´d seen hundreds of rooms like this - on tv. He´d always wondered how the bad guys found the perfect warehouse to torture their victims. Anyway, now the question suddenly seemed not that important anymore.  
  
Contrary to the victims he´d seen on tv, though, he wasn´t bound to a chair, which probably would have been at least less cold, but had just been thrown to the ground, where he sat leaning against a wall with his hands bound behind his back. His ribs hurt. His head hurt. His arms hurt.  
  
All in all, "miserable" didn´t even cover his state. Not to mention frightened. Terrified.  
  
Swallowing dryly, Jesse carefully glanced back at Georgie and Tobey. He didn´t dare ask them why they had brought him here, for he was pretty sure he didn´t want to find out, anyway.  
  
He didn´t have a doubt that he would eventually, though. And that he probably already knew.  
  
"Well, well," a sudden voice echoed through the large empty room, and soon afterwards a tall, slender figure limped slowly into it. A chocolate gaze was layed upon the shivering young man on the ground, quickly followed by a satisfied, somewhat evil smile. "Welcome to you, Dr. Travis."  
  
Jesse wasn´t exactly surprised as he watched Raymond Liotta approach him even more, but he sure felt fear rising inside him at the thought of what was certainly about to come now.  
  
"You shouldn´t be up," he said, trying to sound casually. He couldn´t help his voice shaking slightly, though. "You might tear up those stitches of mine."  
  
"Oh, I doubt that," Liotta replied with a friendly grin. "You did really great work. Quite a skilled young man, y´are, right?"  
  
"Some people think that," Jesse answered with a quick smile.  
  
"And they´re right. No false modesty now! By the way did I ever thank you for saving my life?"  
  
"I got the feeling you´ll do that now," Jesse said with a nervous laugh.  
  
Liotta cast him a long, knowing look and finally nodded grinningly.  
  
"So how did you find out?" the young doctor asked.  
  
Surprised, Liotta´s brows flew up. "You don´t remember?"  
  
At Jesse´s frown, he chuckled. "Sorry to tell you this, Travis, but actually you told me."  
  
"Told ..." Jesse whispered confusedly.  
  
Again, Liotta looked at him hard, then snapped with his fingers loudly, sending Georgie off in a rush to get a chair for him, on which he slowly sat down. His side was obviously still bothering him. He was pale, and a slight shade of sweat shined on his forehead.  
  
"You knew her name," he finally said coldly.  
  
A pause followed. Jesse stared at his captor without understanding. Whose name had he known? Wha... And then it kicked in. Her name. He´d said her name back at he practice. And now Liotta thought ...  
  
"Wait, this is all wrong, I ..." he tried, but was cut off by a sharp gesture of Liotta´s hand, that mentioned Tobey to grab a handfull of the young man´s hair and hold him still.  
  
Bending a little forward - he obviously rather had his own hands arround his captive´s neck now - Liotta narrowed his eyes. "Wrong, doc? I don´t think so. You knew Carlie´s name. Thought I was too out of it to notice your dismay at what I told you? - You thought I killed her," he added after a moment´s thought, " didn´t you?"  
  
"Yes," Jesse admitted.  
  
"Yes. That´s why you wanted to work for me." A soft chuckle escaped Liotta as he shook his head in amusement. "Did you really think I would take you for a junkie?"  
  
"Ah ... You didn´t, huh? Well, guess that´s sort of a compliement," the young man muttered and was rewarded with a sharp, quieting look.   
  
"I don´t mind you thought I was a killer," Liotta said casually, raising his hands as if to show he was unarmed. "I don´t mind that you cheated your way into my practice, too. Hell, you did great there," he added with an innocent smile, which gave way to the coldest of all cold gazes in a split second. "But you stole my girl. And I´m gonna make you pay for that."  
  
The doctor´s eyes grew wide. "Wha... No! I didn´t! I ..."  
  
"It wasn´t you?" Liotta asked, not believing him. "Okay then, give me a name, and you can go. C´mon, doc, just a name." At the following silence, a melancholic smile spread on his lips. "Carlie wasn´t the sort of woman you´d deny. Right?"  
  
"Right," Jesse nodded. His own words sounded far away in his ears, as if another person had spoken them. He couldn´t believe he was doing this, but then he´d known from the second Liotta had entered the room, he would do it. What else could he do?  
  
Chocolate eyes met blue crystal ones with understanding, sadness, sympathy, maybe even friendship. Glancing away, the older man stated: "I don´t blame you for having fallen for her. I don´t hate you. You loved her, just like I did. Carlie was put on this earth to be loved."   
  
After a short pause of memories, he looked back at his captive, who was staring up at him hopelessly. "But she was my woman. You understand? My woman. And you took her from me. You had no right to do that. You stole from me," he added calmly. "I don´t let anyone steel from me."  
  
Before Jesse could think of anything to answer, though he didn´t have a clue what, he felt Georgie´s hands on his shoulders, forcing him forward, while Tobey cut through the ropes that bound his hands. Not knowing what they had in mind, Jesse frowned in fear and tried to keep hold of Liotta´s gaze, silently questioning him.  
  
"You´re a thief, Jesse Travis," the older man explained.   
  
Still frowning at the answer he didn´t understood, Jesse glanced at Tobey, who´d grabbed his left hand by now, paying no attention to the visible injuries it wore. Georgie had gotten a tight hold of his right arm, forcing it to remain behind his back.  
  
Gasping from the pain Tobey caused, Jesse feebly tried to free his hand, but only earned a blow to the face for his efforts. Dazed, he turned his head away, fearing more slaps to come, and got a short glimpse of Georgie´s joyfull grin to his right.  
  
"D´you know what happens to thieves, Dr. Travis?" Liotta asked. He´d leant back comfortably in his chair and watched the scenery closely.   
  
A sudden flash of every "1001 Nights"-stories he´d ever read rushed through Jesse´s mind at the question, and more panicked than he´d ever been, he turned his head to look at what Tobey was doing again.   
  
The larger man had pinned his hand in a tight grib against the wall behind the doctor and was by now fumbling with his gun.   
  
Jesse was pretty sure his eyes couldn´t grew any wider. "Please!" He wanted to scream, but only a chocked whisper left his lips. A begging plea lay in his gaze as it now flew back to Liotta, who shrugged.  
  
"Think of it as a modern way of the old-fashioned punishment," he said, nodding at Tobey to get ready. "You won´t steel from me again, kid."  
  
"No!" Jesse begged. Confronted with Tobey´s gun now being painfully pushed against the soft flesh of his palm, Jesse finally had gotten back his speech. And he was using it excessively. "Please! No!" He didn´t care wether he sounded pathetically, wether they would think him weak. He was scared beyond caring for anything. The prospect of having his hand torn to pieces made his head swim and his voice shriek with terror. "C´mon, you´re not really gonna do this!" he laughed out hysterically. "You can´t!"  
  
"Watch me," Liotta whispered.  
  
"No! No! Please! Plea..."  
  
Tobey pulled the trigger. Georgie sweared loudly as he covered his ears. The young man´s ear-splitting scream echoed through the room. Raymond Liotta folded his hands on his chest.  
  
"No, you won´t steel from anyone again."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Detective Grady Leer whirled around, startled, as the door to the interrogation room he was in was thrown open with a loud bang.  
  
"Slo..." he started confusedly as he recognized the large figure of Lieutenant Steve Sloan standing in the door.   
  
"You," Steve interrupted him, pointing at the man Grady had been interrogating before, who was sitting at the only table in the bleak room, "out."  
  
"Hey!" Leer protested. "Wait a minu..."  
  
"I said out!" Steve growled threateningly. Without bothering to glance at Leer another time, the man rushed out of the room, closing the door behind him carefully as if to not enrage the large man any more.  
  
Inside, Steve didn´t move an inch, stood where he was, staring at Leer, who could feel the hairs on his neck rise in anticipation.  
  
"`kay, Sloan," he finally said calmly, moving himself in front of the table so that he was now facing his colleague, " care to tell me what´s that all about?"  
  
"Who´s your undercover guy?"  
  
The look in Leer´s eyes gave the answer away instantly, but still he raised his brows in surprise. "Beg your pardon?"  
  
"Who´s your guy?"  
  
"C´mon, Sloan," Grady laughed, "you know I can´t tell you that, it´s classified information."  
  
With incredible speed, Steve had the smaller man pinned on the wall with his arm pressing against his throat forcefully. "Will it still be classified information when you won´t be there anymore to know it?" he asked furiously.  
  
"Hey, man ..." Leer croaked, desperately trying to draw much needed oxygen into his lungs.  
  
"I´m gonna ask you one more time, Grady. Who is on the undercover assignment?"  
  
For a split second, Leer´s gaze locked with Steve´s. "Okay, okay," he gasped. "It´s Jesse Travis. Now let me go!"  
  
Reluctantly, Steve drew away his arm, Leer stumpled over to the table, grabbing an edge of it to steady himself as he was coughing and rubbing his throat. "Hell, Sloan, it´s not my fault! The little guy practically begged me to let him do it!"  
  
"How dare you send him in there?!" Steve replied fiercely. "You knew he´s my friend!"  
  
"And I knew he´s a doctor," Grady shot back, taking a small step away from the table. "So what´re you saying, because he´s your friend he isn´t allowed to help the police? Correct me if I´m wrong, but don´t you do this sorta things all the time?!"  
  
"That´s different!" Steve objected, though a shadow of guilt was set free in his eyes by the words.  
  
"Oh yeah?! Why? I don´t see the difference! He knows the risks when he´s doing it for you and he knew them this time, too."  
  
"He was forced to take drugs!" Steve yelled, though he knew Grady was right. If Jesse´d chosen to accept an undercover assignment there was nothing Steve could do about it. Deep inside he knew he wasn´t mad at Grady Leer. Not even at Jesse, though when he ever got his hands on the young doctor, he would lock him up in the hospital and make sure of him to never leave it without his permission again. No, he was furious at himself. For not having noticed what was going on. For having given Jesse the feeling he needed to do this to help him. He´d no doubt about Jesse´s motives.  
  
Leer laughed out loudly. "Hell, Steve, he´s an adult! Yes, I admit it might have been due to the assignment, but still it´s his choice if he decides to actually take the stuff they give their guys there." Shrugging, he sat down at the table casually. "Maybe he liked it. Ever thought ´bout that? Doctors, they´re made up that way."  
  
Another quick move of the lieutenant left his hand grabbing Leer´s collar, practically half-dragging him off the chair. "Maybe you´d like to ..."   
  
"What you want from me, man?!" Leer yelled fearfully, casting an angry look at Steve´s enraged face. "It was his choice! And you know why he did it," he added calmer, "don´t ya?"  
  
Steve failed to notice the quick smile that rushed over his colleague´s features as he bowed his head in regret. The words had stung like a slap in the face.  
  
The ringing of his cell phone cut through the silence like a knife. Releasing Grady from his grib, Steve pulled it out and answered it, his voice shaking with emotion. He cleared his throat and repeated himself, then fell absolutely still as he listened to the words spoken to him.  
  
Grady watched him with interest. He had a pretty good idea about what was told to the lieutenant, but he waited patiently for Steve to mumble a short goodbye and put away his phone.   
  
As he turned to face Grady, who eyed him questioningly, the smaller man could see the worry written all over his face. His features were drawn with concern, his eyes cold with despise when he informed his colleague: "Jesse´s gone. He ran away from the hospital."  
  
Leer looked at him silently.  
  
"If you know where he might be going, Grady ..."  
  
Raising his hands in defeat, Grady Leer shook his head. "I don´t have someone following him everywhere if that´s what you think. And actually he quitted this afternoon."  
  
Half a minute passed by, before Steve finally turned and opened the door. For the very first time in his life he felt small, not in control of the situation.  
  
"Grady," he asked, not looking at Leer, while he still held the door half open. "Since when did you know about Carlie?"  
  
Leer lifted his head slightly and raised his brows. "You better hurry," he said. "The kid seemed to be pretty out of it when I last saw him. We don´t want him end up doing something stupid, do we?"  
  
"If anything happens to Jesse," Steve growled, making a threatening step towards the smaller man, but got a grip on himself fast enough, "I´m gonna fry your ass so hard you´ll be lucky to just get suspended!" With that he turned to leave the room before he could change his mind and simply kill the man inside of it.  
  
Detective Grady Leer remained where he stood, rubbing a hand over his throat. One corner of his mouth twitched to a crooked smile.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
"What time is it?" Georgie asked impatiently.  
  
Rolling his eyes, Tobey sighed deeply. "Gee, half a second later than the last time y´asked, idiot."  
  
"He shoulda been here hours ago!" Georgie complained whinyly. A yawn broke free on his face, he didn´t bother to cover it with his hand.  
  
"You´re exaggerating," Tobey replied. "He said he´d be back in two hours, and it´s been exactly two hours. Why don´t you go on our guest´s nerves for a change, huh? I bet he´s bored, too."  
  
Following his partner´s gaze over to the pathetic heap on the floor that once had been a fairly healthy looking young doctor, Georgie grimaced. "Nah, guy said we shouldn´t kill shorty." Obviously that brought a thought to the otherwise mostly thought-free area of his brain, and he cast Tobey a worried look. "Did you check on him, anyway? Like if he´s still alive?"  
  
"Georgie, I can see him breathe from here."  
  
That was a little exaggerated, for Jesse´s breathing had become so shallow that Tobey couldn´t possibly see it from where he and his partner were standing, but fortunately he was right nevertheless. The young man was unconscious, but alive.  
  
After Raymond Liotta had watched with business-like interest how Jesse´s left hand had been turned into a useless boundle of bloodied flesh, he´d excused himself. "I´m gonna lay down for a short while. Doctor´s orders," he´d added with a dry smile at the wriggling man on the ground. "I want him to be still alive when I come back, you hear?"  
  
"Sure, sir," Tobey had nodded obediently.  
  
"As far as that - do with him whatever you wanna do," were Liotta´s parting words as the door fell closed behind him.  
  
It didn´t take Georgie and Tobey long to decide it was boring just sitting there in the cold watching their young captive lay on the ground, clamping his shattered hand, groaning, so they´d taught him a lesson of their own. It was what they were good at, so why not do it?   
  
Besides, it was sort of relaxing to work off their aggressions and frustration on the helpless man, who they knew nothing about, anyway. Maybe he even deserved it. Whatever the truth was, when they let go off him, Jesse Travis looked reduced to a heap on the floor.  
  
His shirt was torn in so many places, it actually were a bunch of rags covering his lacerated body underneath. There wasn´t much bleeding to be seen - Georgie and Tobey were professionals, trained to keep the mess to a minimum - but hardly a spot on his body that wasn´t turning blue or black. The young man was covered with bruises, and eventully he´d given up his attempts to stay conscious and had fled into a mercyfull darkness some time ago.   
  
Now the boredom had returned with a vengance to the two men. They´d told each other every new joke they´d heard over the last week till they´d run out of them.  
  
A low moan drew their attention to Jesse again, who was slowly coming to, much to his disadvantage, for there wasn´t a spot on his body which didn´t hurt and not a single motion to perform which didn´t sent waves of pain through his nerves.   
  
"Short shanks´ wakin´ up," Georgie informed his partner as he slightly approached the moving figure.  
  
Tobey rolled his eyes. "Don´t say."  
  
"No really, he ..."  
  
"I can see that, dumbo!" Tobey growled, and followed Georgie over to Jesse, whose eyes had begun to flicker open by now.  
  
"Hey shorty," Tobey grinned at him. "Welcome back! Happy to see us again, ain´t ya?"  
  
As an answer, Jesse closed his eyes again, but was kept from slipping back into unconsciousness by Georgie´s hands grabbing the pathetic remains of his shirt and yanking him to a half-standing position. A small cry of protest escaped the young doctor, but he´d learned his lesson: he didn´t struggle at all against the butal treatment.  
  
Receiving a "no fun"-look from his partner, Georgie then ruttled Jesse roughly, as a sudden bang echoed loudly through the building.  
  
Before he could even turn fully around to see what it had been, Tobey felt the impact of a bullet sending him flying through the air. He hit the wall behind him and was dead when he slid to the ground.  
  
Georgie´s frantic gaze flew to the door, he still held the only semi-aware Jesse by the collar. The young doctor´s eyes had snapped open at the sounds, but he only had a vague idea of what was going on around him. His head was protesting against the act of thinking, and his senses were actually busy informing him about all the places they received "Hurts!"-messages from.  
  
So Jesse didn´t see Grady Leer enter the room and aim at Georgie, who was still too shocked to let go off his captive and draw his gun.  
  
"Hi," Leer greeted him with a bright smile. "Are you Georgie or Tobey?"  
  
"Huh?" Georgie made.  
  
"Well," Leer laughed amusedly, "you´re right - like I care! So Mr. Huh, if you would care to let go off Dr. Travis now, I won´t be forced to shoot you in the leg before I kill you. I know you probably haven´t studied medicine, neither have I, but take an advice from me: bullet, your leg - don´t mix. So what d´you say, hm?"  
  
Georgie´s eyes narrowed. "Who the hell are you, you freak?!" he yelled and had another more anguished yelp following as a bullet hit his upper leg, sending him and Jesse to the ground.  
  
Approaching the swearing large man to his feet, Grady Leer shrugged casually. "You people," he said regretfully, "you never listen."   
  
With that he placed a clear shot to Georgie´s head, killing him in a split-second.  
  
Jesse had let out a grunt of pain as he was released from Georgie´s grib just to hit the ground hard, and was by now staring in shock at the amount of blood that poured from the dead man´s head next to him. It didn´t actually go to his fuzzy mind how his captor had ended up that way, but being a doctor, he knew for sure that a hole in the skull meant he was most probably dead.  
  
His attempts at understanding were interrupted by a soft touch to his chin, a hand was placed underneath it as to slightly lift his head off the ground.  
  
Wincing, cause even so small a movement sent stabbing pain through his head and neck, Jesse looked into the eyes of Detective Grady Leer, who grimaced in amused sympathy.  
  
"Wow, look at you."  
  
The younger man frowned in surprise. Somewhere in his mind he´d realized he´d been safed from his tormentors, but he´d expected another face to greet him. "Grady?" he therefore whispered confusedly.  
  
"Yeahp, you´re welcome," Grady Leer smiled, while he helped the injured doctor to a sitting position. From where he was now leaning against the wall, Jesse had an even better look at Georgie´s body, and his gaze wandered from the terrible sight back to Leer with an expression of dread in it.  
  
"You killed him," Jesse stated and looked over to where Tobey lay in an equally still, bloody way. "What´s going on here?"   
  
Placing a hand on his heart in mock sentiment, Leer came to his feet again, so that he was towering over the young doctor. "Kid, those are the warmest words of gratefulness I´ve ever heard," he said. "Would save your life again anytime."  
  
"Where´s Liotta?" Jesse asked, ignoring Leer´s weird sense of humor.  
  
"That´s the one million dollar question."  
  
The still dazed blue eyes grew wide. "Wha... You killed him?!" the doctor asked in disbelief. "Why? What are you ..." Jesse´s gaze wandered over to the door, then swept the room completely, and he hushed himself quickly, casting the detective a clear look. "You´re alone?"  
  
Grady Leer remained silent, just grinned at the smaller man on the ground.  
  
"What d´you want from me?" Jesse finally asked. It didn´t even sound fearfully; he was exhausted beyond caring anymore. The dull ache in his head made his way of thoughts short and fuzzy. His cracked ribs had turned each breath into an ordeal of it´s own. He just wanted to close his eyes and sleep for a century.  
  
"Hey, don´t let this sound like I´m always only turning to you when I want something," Leer replied in mock hurt. "After all I just saved your life."  
  
Jesse opened his mouth to wise-crack, but a sudden sharp pain in his chest made him gasp and squeeze his eyes shut as if to cope with the tightening sensation in his lungs.  
  
"Okay, okay," Grady Leer said hastily, raising his hands as if Jesse´s fit had been a threat. "Don´t get all agitated here. Well," he added after a moment´s thoughts and looked around for the chair Liotta had been sitting on before. He placed it back across the wall on the ground and sat down, folding his hands on his chest. "Looks like I´m the bad guy here, right? And like all bad guys I shall reveal my evil plan to you now, so that you - Jesse Travis, superhero - know about it and can use it against me later on when you outtrick me and I lose."  
  
At Jesse´s completely blank look, Grady Leer laughed softly and shrugged. "Hey, I watch tv, too. I know the bad guy always loses. So perhaps," he added, aiming his gun directly at Jesse, "I should just shoot you here and now."  
  
Jesse stared at the gun, then at the grin behind it. He was scared alright, but he was even more pissed. "What´re you talking ´bout, you freak?!" he heard himself yelling weakly at Leer. "What sort of a plan is that - spy on the guy, then kill him and everybody else involved ... What d´you get outta this?!"  
  
Sighing slightly, Leer nodded and put away his gun. "You´re right, Jess," he agreed. "I won´t kill you - yet. What do I get out of this?" he continued in a teacher-like tone and even stood to pace in front of the doctor for emphasis. " Good question. How ´bout two million dollar?"  
  
"Two mi..." Jesse repeated confusedly, then lifted his head. "The money Carlie´s mother stole from her husband."  
  
"Bright boy," Leer praised him sweetly.  
  
"You think ..." Jesse couldn´t help his lips twitching in amusement at this revelation. "You think Liotta was the guy she stole it for. Don´t you?"  
  
Frowning at the sudden, very much undesired change of mood on his young captive´s face, Leer stopped his pacing. "Yeah," he said.   
  
"That´s why you wanted this undercover assignment," Jesse continued, his amusement increasing, "and why you told everyone Liotta had shot Vitense. And that´s why you ..." He hushed suddenly as a thought rushed through his mind. Casting an angry look at the detective, he finished: "you send those guys who shot Liotta. You wanted me to save his life and earn his trust. You thought he´d tell me ... You fu..."  
  
"Hey, hey!" Leer cut him off quickly. "Don´t say anything you might regret later. `sides, I didn´t order them to work you over like that. But, y´know, guy your size - it´s pretty tempting," he finished with a cruel smile and bent over to the doctor, who tried to shrink away a little, but was of couse cought between the detective and the wall. "So, since you saw through my excellent plan, Superdoc, I will shorten the explaining-part and simply ask. And I will only ask once," he added, pressing the barrel of the gun against Jesse´s temple. "Where is the money?"  
  
Jesse swallowed dryly. He had a fair idea of where it was, but if he was right, he was a dead man, anyway. Frantically trying to figure out what to say, he remained silent and just stared at the gun.  
  
"Where?!" Leer yelled.   
  
The barrel painfully pressed against Jesse´s skin, making him wince. Everything would be better than to end up getting shot there and then, he decided and croaked: "it´s at the practice. I know where."  
  
"Liotta told you?" Leer asked without removing his gun.  
  
"Yes," Jesse whispered. "He told me. Before I took the bullet out of his side. He thought he´d die, and he told me."  
  
"I knew it!" Leer cried out in pure joy. He drew away the gun, which made Jesse sigh deeply in relief, and performed a little happy-jump in the air. "I knew he would tell the kid who saved his life! The poor idiot, he was so predictable! They all are," he told the watching doctor, changing to a casual tone. "See, son," he continued in mock seriousness, that left Jesse wondering if that man was sane after all, "I studied men like Liotta for years. They´re such morons when it comes to honor and stuff - its beautiful!" Drawing in a deep breath, he whirled around to face Jesse, who startedly tried to back away, and grabbed the smaller man´s shoulder, dragging him painfully to his feet.  
  
"Now, my young friend, you´ll show me where it is."  
  
Releasing his grib, he pushed Jesse forward, so that the doctor landed on his face once more, groaning in pain.  
  
"Oh sorry," Grady Leer announced, "I forgot you´re not quick on your feet at the moment. `kay then, let me give you a hand."  
  
With that he simply grabbed Jesse´s left foot and headed off, dragging the struggling man behind him.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"Wow, don´t you get the movie-thrill, too?" Grady Leer asked when they sat inside his car, which parked across Donahue´s practice twenty minutes later.  
  
Too weak to reply, Jesse simply shot him a dirty look. He sat huddled on the passenger seat, cradling his left hand and simultaniously trying to protect his ribs. The slight bouncing of a driving car had been enough for his battered body to protest in ways that had brought him pretty near passing out again. The uncertanty of his fate had by now begun to slightly bother him. If he hadn´t been fond about dying at the hands of Raymond Liotta, he was downright pissed at the thought that the fruitcake next to him would be the one pulling the trigger. No, he wouldn´t die, he decided. Not today.  
  
He had to think of something. "Sorry, but the brain you called is temporaryly not available," the wry answer to that attempt shot through his mind.  
  
"Here we are," Grady Leer continued his speech in the meantime, "the bad guy, about to win, and Superdoc - or rather," he grinned after a moment´s thoughts, "Supercop´s sidecrack. The funny little guy for the one-liners."  
  
"Has anyone ever told you," Jesse muttered, "that you watch too much tv?"  
  
"Nope," Leer replied and pulled out his cell phone. "You can´t watch too much tv, doc. - Okay, sidecrack, I´m now gonna call Sloan and tell him where y´are."  
  
At Jesse´s confused look, he smiled sweetly. "We don´t want him come here and ruin the party, do we?"  
  
With that he dialed Steve´s number and was rewarded with a quick answer.  
  
"Sloan," he said in fake excitement, "I found Travis."  
  
As Leer listened to Steve´s reaction, Jesse watched with the frantic urge to do something. It was his last chance. But before he could open his mouth to yell, Leer suddenly grabbed his shattered hand and squeezed.  
  
The pain made Jesse see stars, he heard his own agonized screams as if from the far. It blackened eveything around him, he couldn´t recall where or who he was anymore, there was just mind-numbing pain all around him, as if he´d fallen in a see of black waves threatening to drown him. Nothing mattered, only to get away from the pain. He didn´t struggle against the blissfull darkness, but almost sighed in relief when he felt his mind drifting away from his conscious self.  
  
Watching the young doctor´s head lolling to the side, Leer let go off his hand, grimacing at the blood he had on his own now.   
  
"Yeah," he told Steve, who´d listened to his friend´s cries with horror, "he´s in pretty bad shape. I think he lost consciousness now. You better hurry."  
  
Widening his eyes in amused surprise, when Steve finished the call without even saying goodbye, Grady put away his phone. "Wow, that was easier than I thought. C´mon, Robin," he added and got out of the car, crossed over to the passenger´s side and dragged Jesse´s still form out of it, throwing him over his shoulder. "Batman will be on his way soon."  
  
  
  
  
  
Dr. Donahue whirled around surprisedly, when he heard the back door to his practice being opened. Frowning, he checked the plan on the wall behind him, but found he´d thought right, there wasn´t anyone supposed to be there that day. Actually he´d chosen the day to get some paper-work done, while there wasn´t any operation going on or one of the kids sitting around.  
  
"Who´s there?" he called out and turned to open the door to recovery, the room which one entered through the back door, but he didn´t get very far. He couldn´t even see who the shooter was, when a bullet hit him in the chest, sending him flying through the room and over his table.  
  
"Dr. Donahue?" Grady Leer whispered as he pushed the door open slightly and peeked through it. He´d layed his burden on the bed in recovery and was now entering the office, where blood was sprained on the wall. The body itself lay behind the table, only the feet could be seen from where the detective stood.  
  
"Wow," Grady said impressedly. "I always knew I was good, but that´s def an A plus!" Turning around the table, he met the frantic gaze of his victim, who struggled for breath. A thin trickle of blood cascaded from the corner of his mouth.   
  
"Aw," Leer said disappointedly and aimed at Donahue´s head, "crabs. B plus then." He didn´t bother to check another time after he´d pulled the trigger.  
  
When he reentered recovery, he was greeted by a sight that made him laugh. Jesse had come to and managed to fall off the bed onto the ground. He´d crawled half the way over to the door.  
  
Casually strolling over to the young man, Leer pointed the barrel of his gun at the back of Jesse´s head and sighed. "Care to tell me what you think you´re doing, Jess?"  
  
"Looking for your money?" Jesse tried, but was rewarded for his humor only by being dragged to his feet by the back of his shirt and thrown against the legs of the bed. Suppressing a cry of pain, as his hand hit the steel, he stared up at the detective, wondering what was about to happen next.  
  
Grady shook his head like a disappointed father, then pulled out his cuffs and quickly secured Jesse to the leg of the bed.   
  
"Getting worried, bad guy?" Jesse wise-cracked bravely. "You really think I´d go somewhere?"  
  
Leer shot him a glance and slowly came back to his feet from where he´d cuffed his young captive.  
  
"D´you know that when the sidecrack starts making fun of the bad guy it´s almost over?"   
  
Smiling at the comment, Grady took his gun again and aimed at Jesse´s throat. "For the sidecrack?" he asked sarcastically and grinned even brighter when Jesse didn´t reply, but winced at the painful sensation of the gun pressed against his throat.  
  
"Supercop´s most probably aready on the way by now," Grady said with a glance on his watch. "So again I´m gonna ask you just once, Jess. Where is it?"  
  
"Here," Jesse croaked.  
  
A quick laugh rushed over Grady Leer´s features. "Okay," he said and took a step backwards, ready to pull the trigger.  
  
"No!" Jesse called out. "I mean it´s here! It´s this," he added hastily and continued at Leer´s frown: "It´s the practice."  
  
"Jesse ..."  
  
"It is!" the young doctor repeated fiecely. "Donahue was the guy Vitense´s wife was involved with. Don´t you get it? They set him up."  
  
A short pause followed, before Grady asked doubtfully: "So why didn´t they get rid off him then?"  
  
"Carlie," Jesse replied. "Raymond was in love with Carlie. The human factor," he added with a sudden change in his eyes, as he focused on a point behind Grady´s back. "All bad guys fail because of the human factor."  
  
"And all smart-ass sidecracks ..." Leer started, pressing the barrel against Jesse´s forehead now, but was interrupted by a familiar klick behind him that made him whirl around.  
  
"Get away from him, Grady!" Steve ordered calmly, his gun aimed at his colleague from where he stood at the door.  
  
"Robin, look," Leer said casually without drewing his gun away, "Batman has arrived.You´re too early, Sloan," he told the lieutenant who smiled wryly.  
  
"Like he said: human factor. Now lower your weapon."  
  
"Hm," Leer made, frowning as if thinking about the suggestion. "How `bout you lower yours and I don´t shoot him?"  
  
Watching how Jesse swallowed dryly, Steve tried to stay calm and in control. "It´s over, Grady. You won´t make it out of here."  
  
"Oh no? Correct me if I´m wrong, Sloan, but - you´re alone, right?" As Steve failed to answer, the detective chuckled softly. "Good guys, they´re so predictable."  
  
"Drop the gun," Steve said firmly.  
  
"Y´know what all bad guys do in a situation like this?" Grady asked. "They all shoot at the hero instead of the sidecrack. Ever noticed that? They all suddenly lift their gun and aim at the cop, and that´s why they´re all killed then. And why do they do that? They don´t watch enough tv, that´s why."  
  
"Grady ..." Steve started.  
  
"So," Leer interrupted him amusedly, raising his brows. "Am I gonna do that, too? Hm."   
  
He jumped aside and pulled the trigger so quickly, Steve hadn´t even noticed him preparing to do it. "Catch me if you can, Supercop!" he yelled from the office where he´d fled to, to leave the practice through the window. But rushing forward to follow him, Steve froze as he passed Jesse´s form on the ground.   
  
Since he´d jumped when shooting, Leer hadn´t hit the spot he´d aimed at, but still the bullet had scratched the side of Jesse´s head, and blood already colored his blond hair red.   
  
"What´re you waiting for?" the young man asked when his friend stared at him in dismay.  
  
"He hit you," Steve informed him, already crouching down next to him to get a better look at the wound. It wasn´t terribly deep, but the amount of blood pouring from it made him wince nervously.  
  
"You had to tell me, huh?" Jesse growled softly for now he could feel the pain emerging from the spot in waves. His vision blurred slightly, his eyes grew heavy. "At least it wasn´t you again."  
  
"Shut up, sidecrack," Steve muttered and turned to free Jesse´s hands. At the sight of the bloody mess there he winced in sympathy. "Oh god! Grady did this?" he asked in disbelief.  
  
"No," Jesse muttered seepily. "Liotta."  
  
Alarmed at the weak reply, Steve lifted his head again to see Jesse´s eyes being closed. "Hey! Jess!" he called, ruttling his friend´s shoulder softly. "You can´t go to sleep now! Jesse!"  
  
Groaning in pain, Jesse cracked his eyes half-open. "Don´t yell," he whispered, though it sounded as if he´d like to yell himself. "My head´s killing me!"  
  
Steve had by now managed to free Jesse´s wrists of the cuffs and carefully picked him up to lay him on the bed. Almost immediately the pillow had red strains on it. Frantically looking around, the lieutenant grabbed a white towell and pressed it on the wound while fumbling with his cell phone to call an ambulence.  
  
Jesse yelped softly.  
  
"Sorry, pal," Steve said apologetically.  
  
"I´m so sick of this!" the anguished young man stated. His eyes were already closing again. "I just wanna sleep without waking up on some freaky place only to be ..." He interrupted himself as another painfilled moan escaped his lips.  
  
"Don´t worry, you´re safe now," Steve promised. He´d finally pulled out his cell phone and was now dialing 911. "As for the freaky place, though ..."  
  
"Just ... wanna slee..." Jesse mumbled, his head lolling against Steve´s arm.  
  
"Jesse!" the lieutenant called in dismay. "Jess! Hey, wa... Yeah, this is Lieutenant Steve Sloan, LAPD, I have an emergency here."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"He´s gone?" Amanda Bentley asked in angry disbelief.   
  
Mark nodded sadly, while they continued their way through the hallway of Communtiy General. "I´m afraid so. Steve said they checked all the airports and highways, but they might have been too late already. Grady Leer most probably left town."  
  
"Damn! For all what he´s done to Jesse, I ..."  
  
"Yeah I know," Mark interrupted her gently and came to a halt as they reached Jesse´s room.   
  
Inside Jesse was sound asleep in his bed, his color of face had improved slightly, but the thick bandages on his head, chest and hand still told enough for Amanda and Mark to shudder slightly.  
  
Next to the injured young man Steve Sloan sat on an uncomfortable chair, his arms folded on the bedside, his head resting on top of them. He, too, was sleeping.   
  
Smiling warmly, Amanda quietly entered the room, Mark followed her.  
  
"Whose snoring is this?" the pathologist asked amusedly.   
  
"How should I know?" Mark replied and took the remote control of the still running tv to turn it off. An old "Muppets Show" re-run was on, Dr. Wolf was just losing another patient in the Muppets Hospital.  
  
The second Mark had turned it off, Steve and Jesse blinked simultaniously and moved their heads.  
  
"Hey," Steve mumbled sleepily and rouse to cast his father a reprimanding look.  
  
"Yeah," Jesse agreed softly. "Hey! That was one of my faves." With a little help from Amanda he managed to sit up slightly, suppressing a wince. "Dr. Wolf was the reason I became a doctor."  
  
"I don´t doubt that," Steve stated. Mark only chuckled.  
  
"You two! So, Jess, how´re you feeling?" he asked, frowning as he bent over to get a better look at the young patient.  
  
"D´you want a wise-crack reply or the truth?"   
  
"I think that was truth enough," Mark smiled sympathetically. "How´s your head doing?"  
  
"Fine, but I hurt like hell."  
  
Amanda laughed gently and reached out to patt her friend´s shoulder. It was the same movement she would have made if she´d wanted to ruffle his hair, so Jesse backed away instantly. "Mark I don´t want the pathologist touch my head, yet."  
  
"Okay, that´s it," Amanda said in mock hurt, throwing her hands into the air. "I´m outta here!" With that she bent over again, placing a soft kiss on Jesse´s forehead. "Get some rest."  
  
"Yeah, see ya," Jesse smiled as she left.  
  
"That´s a pretty good idea," Mark agreed and cast his son a look. "I´ll be back when my shift ends," he told Jesse and reached out only to freeze in mid-air. "Right," he nodded at Jesse´s reprimanding look and grinned. "Right."  
  
With that he left the room, leaving Jesse and Steve alone.  
  
"I should take shots to the head more often, "Jesse said wryly. "Keeps you guys from ruffling me all the time."  
  
"I never ruffle you," Steve replied dryly, "and if you gonna make some smart-ass comment about me hitting you instead, I´m gonna ..."  
  
"Apologize?" Jesse finished innocently.  
  
Sighing deeply, Steve nodded. "Yeah. Apologize. Jesse, I´m so sorry, really I ... I can´t say how sorry I am. I mean you did all this ..." A short pause occured, in which Steve looked aside. When he finally spoke again, he looked up fondly. "Actually there´s only one thing I can say, Jess: if you ever - and I mean ever - pull a stunt like that again, I´m gonna lock you up in this very room for good. You understand?"  
  
"Sure," Jesse smiled.   
  
"Good," Steve nodded and turned. "You rest now."  
  
"Yeah. Hey, Steve," Jesse called after him when he´d already opened the door.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"You´re welcome."  
  
Casting his friend a long look, Steve nodded. He then quickly closed the door behind him, before some of the wetness in his eyes might cascade down his cheeks.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
As soon as Mark entered the beach house that evening, he spotted his son sitting on the sofa in the dark. He closed the front door quietly as to not startle him and crossed the room till he stood next to the sofa.  
  
Steve didn´t look up.   
  
Mark sighed softly and sat down next to his son.  
  
Not a word was spoken over the next hours. The two men sat in the dark, the younger one seeking comfort from there mere presence of the older one.  
  
Eventually, Steve fell asleep, his head resting on his father´s shoulder. A sad déjà-vu, Mark felt the situation to be. He didn´t lift a hand to wipe away the single tear that fell down his cheek.   
  
Maybe he´d been wrong after all. Maybe things would never change.  
  
  
  
the end 


End file.
